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Priestess of the Occult

Priestess of the
Occult

GERTRUDE MARVIN WILLIAMS

New York : ALFRED A KNOPF • 1946

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK, PUBLISHED BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

Copyright 1946 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. AU rights reserved . No part of
this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages
or reproduce not more than three illustrations in a review to be printed
in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of
America

Published simultaneously in Canada by The Ryerson Press.

FIRST EDITION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I

ENTER MADAME

Page 3

Chapter II

DANSE MACABRE

Chapter III

THE VAGABOND YEARS

Chapter IV

VARIORUM EDITION

Chapter V

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

Chapter VI

TRIAL AND ERROR

Chapter VII

CREATING A CULT

Chapter VIII

NECROMANCY, INC.

117

Chapter IX

WEST GOES EAST

135

Chapter X

ENTER THE MAHATMAS

154

Chapter XI

WHAT IS TRUTH?

174

Chapter XII

HOODOO YEARS

183

Chapter XIII

THE WORLD IN HER SLING

201

Chapter XIV

THE COULOMB LETTERS

222

Chapter XV

THE SOCIETY FOR

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

237

Chapter XVI

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

258

Chapter XVII

HELENA UNVEILED

274

Chapter XVIII

SECRET DOCTRINE

287

vii

TA0LE OF CONTENTS

ChaptQB-XIX INTO THE SILENCE Page 311

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 316

APPENDIXES 318

BIBLIOGRAPHY 339

INDEX follows page 345

viii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE INSCRUTABLE MADAME Facing page 20

THE “LOVELY MAIDEN” 21

SKETCH OF H.P.B. BY A. L. RAWSON 21

ALBERT P. SINNETT 52

COUNT SERGEI YULIEVICH WITTE 52

COLONEL HENRY STEEL OLCOTT 53

ALEXANDER NIKOLAYEVICH AKSAKOV 84

SALON IN THE LAMASERY, NEW YORK 85

DINING ROOM IN THE LAMASERY, NEW
YORK 116

A MAHATMA AT HOME 117

INSCRIPTION AND SIGNATURE BY MAD-
AME BLAVATSKY 178

MESSAGE AND SIGNATURE BY MAHATMA
MORYA 178

HEADQUARTERS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY AT ADYAR 210

PORTRAIT OF MADAME BLAVATSKY BY
SCHMIECHEN 211

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LEADING THEOSOPHISTS AFTER MADAME

BLAVATSKY’S DEATH 242

COUNTESS CONSTANCE WACftTMEISTER 243

FLOOR PLANS OF SECRET ROOM AND
SHRINE, ADYAR 244

THEOSOPHISTS WHO KNEW H.P.B. IN HER
LATER YEARS 304

ANNIE BESANT 305

HER FIGHTING DAYS WERE OVER 336

H.P.B. IN PERAMBULATOR 337

Priestess of the Occult

CHAPTER I

ENTER MADAME

( 1874)

“PERMETTEZ-MOI, Madame ” and the Colonel gallantly
lighted the lady’s cigarette. In his diary that night, under
the date line for October 14, 1874, he made note of meet-
ing the Countess Helena Petrovna de Blavatsky. Her scar-
let Garibaldi shirt had challenged him the moment he
entered the somber dining room of the Vermont farm-
house. Her smoking was a madcap gesture that roused his
curiosity. Uncertainly he decided that she was just another
eccentric; the gaunt New England homestead was full of
cranks gathered from far and near to attend the stances held
by two dour farmers, the Eddy brothers. Luckily he knew
enough French to understand Madame’s amusing chatter
with a woman companion, and he sat down at the same
table. She had, he confided to his diary, a massive Calmuck
face, and her hair was a thick blond mop that stood out
from her head “silken soft and crinkled to the roots like the
fleece of a Cotswold ewe.” It was not a poetic simile, but
he was not a romantic man. Colonel Olcott was middle-
aged, married, the father of three sons; beginning life as a
farmer, he had made himself a lawyer, and was doubling as
a newspaper reporter.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

After dinner everyone strolled out into an unkempt yard.
Vivacious Madame Blavatsky rolled a cigarette with prac-
ticed ease and, as she passed the Colonel, did a swift panto-
mime of looking for a light. The Colonel learned from
Madame that she was a Russian lately arrived in this coun-
try and an ardent spiritualist. She had been following the
accounts of these stances in the New York Graphic with
breathless interest; they were written by a Colonel Olcott
and were creating a sensation. The public swept them off
the newsstands as fast as they were printed and she had paid
as much as a dollar a copy for this three-cent paper. She
chattered on confidingly:

“I hesitated before coming here because I was afraid of
meeting that Colonel Olcott.”

“Why should you be afraid of him, Madame?”

“Oh! because I fear that he might write about me in his
paper.”

It gave the Colonel the pleasant sense of a strong man
protecting a helpless woman to introduce himself as none
other than the dreaded Olcott, and he enjoyed her charm-
ing confusion. Madame prolonged her visit for a fortnight,
the Colonel made an early surrender. She bewildered and
fascinated him with an exotic display of temperament, reel-
ing off tales of amazing adventure, flashing into rages when
she swore like a trooper, suddenly transfigured by flights of
sublime fantasy.

Madame’s arrival had transformed the seances. Previously
an Indian spirit control, Santum or Honto or the squaw
Bright Star, had taken possession of the entranced me-
dium’s body and called out routine messages supposed to
come from deceased relatives of persons in the audience:
Mother, Uncle John, Cousin Mary. Madame changed all
that. Fantastic figures swarmed over the rocky hillside as
though it were a diplomatic garden party: a Kurd warrior
armed to the teeth, a black African in a breechclout, a tur-
baned Hindu. Madame recognized the new spirits one after

ENTER MADAME

another: Hassan Agha, a wealthy merchant versed in the
black arts whom she had known in Tiflis; Michalko, a Geor-
gian serf who had been her bodyguard in the Caucasus; an
old Russian peasant nurse who greeted her respectfully as
“Barishnia”; several dignified Russian gentlemen wearing
the Cross of Saint Anne, all of whom turned out to be rela-
tives.

Madame Blavatsky seemed to have come to an immedi-
ate understanding with the surly Eddy brothers. Whereas
the audience, including the newspaper men, was relegated
to the back of the room, Madame sat on the top step of
the medium’s platform close to the cabinet, where she could
touch the hands of the spirits as they wavered between this
world and the next. It was she too who played the parlor
organ for singing and made herself generally useful. Mani-
festations reached a climax on the last night of her stay. In
the darkness a spirit control placed in Madame Blavatsky’s
hand the buckle of a medal awarded to her brave father by
Czar Nicholas and buried with him in Russia the previous
year. Madame gave a choked cry and, even after the lamp
was brought in, was unable to speak. When she recovered
herself, she identified the buckle by its blunt pointed pin,
which she had broken off many years earlier.

With guileless enthusiasm Olcott reported the new phe-
nomena. He called attention to the amazing accuracy of
the spirits’ costumes, taking Madame’s word for it, since he
could scarcely have known the correct details for Kurd war-
riors and Ukrainian peasants. He had no difficulty in break-
ing down her shyness about publicity and he let himself go
in describing her aristocratic family connections, her adven-
tures by land and sea, and her “rare educational and natural
endowments ... It will be seen that a lady of such social
position would be incapable of entering into a vulgar con-
spiracy with any private tricksters to deceive the public .” 1
Madame’s understanding with the Eddys had been observed

1 New York Graphic, November 27, 1874.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

and challenged; the Colonel in the first fortnight of their
acquaintance was forced to fumble defensively with the
charges of fraud that pursued them for the rest of their lives.

Madame virtually kidnapped the Colonel. She needed a
partner, and he had excellent qualifications. A newspaper
man, he could secure publicity; he was credulous and sus-
ceptible; his dignified and honest presence would be disarm-
ing. Such was the beginning of a partnership that assisted
Madame Blavatsky to attain immortality as the creator of
a semireligious cult.

Every year on May 8 devotees all over the world assemble
to celebrate White Lotus Day, the anniversary of the death
in 1891 of Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy. They
write eulogies and read favorite passages from the works of
H.P.B., as she signed herself, and as they lovingly remem-
ber her. Half a century after her death she is still a vivid,
living force in the hearts of thousands of earnest men and
women.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was a brilliant and extraordi-
narily captivating woman. Never a siren, she depended on
something more subtle and more important than beauty.
She displayed, rather, the exaggerated qualities, the in-
grained nonconformity, the histrionic gestures of a heroic-
sized statue come to life. She had homely square cut fea-
tures and had begun to put on flesh before she was thirty,
but she had also a rollicking, impudent, irresistibly endear-
ing sense of humor, and she ridiculed all the world, including
herself with Rabelaisian gusto. She possessed imagination,
versatility, dynamic energy. And she looked you in the face
with magnificent azure eyes reflecting the wisdom of one
who has lived lavishly and intensely and known the excesses
of joy and anguish. Men remembered her eyes all their lives.

Intuitive, impulsive, inconsistent, swept by pathological
rages, Helena was by nature an artist, but she preferred an-
other part, that of philosopher and teacher, and she played
it in the grand manner. She was subject to the emotional

ENTER MADAME

instability and neurotic tendencies characteristic of many
mystics, the famous saints and founders of religious cults.
A bundle of contradictions, she combined a showman’s in-
stinct for popular appeal with the contemptuous arrogance
of an old-school aristocrat. She was a fascinating human
being. She challenged the interest and commanded the loy-
alty of intellectuals, men and women of distinction and
important achievements rendered vulnerable by a passion-
ate craving for an answer to the riddle of life. Endowed with
mysterious power to dominate her disciples, she drove them
to despair and revolt, but while they remained under her
spell she had the gift of rousing them to exhilarating heights
of self-abnegation and dynamic loyalty.

The story of Helena’s life cuts across subjects that have
from time immemorial teased and seduced mankind: magic,
mysticism, spiritualism, yoga, psychological phenomena.
Her life exudes a musky odor of mystery and paradox. In
her last years she was haunted by old scandals, shadows of
lovers dead and gone, bigamous marriages, an illegitimate
son, fraud and trickery de luxe. She owed her most success-
ful effects to the magic not of the occult, but of her own
captivating personality. But Madame Blavatsky created
something more enduring than personal glamour. She left a
body of legends and writings that bring comfort to men and
women all over the world struggling against loneliness and
infirmity, against those unhappy fears which keep mankind
forever searching for reassurance and security. In spite of
flagrant perfidies, she has passed the ultimate test and won
her niche among the elect whose memory survives the grave.

2 .

Madame Blavatsky’s life divided itself into three periods:
childhood in a world that has vanished with the glittering
pomp and brutality of old czarist Russia, ending with her
marriage at seventeen to General Nicephore Blavatsky; the
prime of life, a quarter-century of vagabondage, bold ad-

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ventures rebelling against conventions, crashing tabus; and
maturity, readjusting herself to the harsh reality of middle
age. At forty-two Madame Blavatsky became High Priestess
of the Occult.

Madame’s Theosophical career offers an intimate picture
of the strange, secret process of creating a cult. She left a
mass of confidential writings that show with the vividness
of a biological moving picture the process of breathing life
into the dry dust of a new evangel, the creation of an atmos-
phere of authenticity, the manufacture of legends and evi-
dence, the casual enunciation of a new theory, and its evo-
lution into a sacred principle venerated by the faithful.

Schools of theosophy have flourished in many countries
all down the centuries, and are distinguished by their re-
curring claim to a special divine revelation, the word the-
osophy meaning literally wisdom of the divine. The famous
theosophists have used various devices to authenticate their
revelations: Paracelsus, an occultist, dabbled in alchemy and
studied the kabbala; Swedenborg beheld heavenly visions;
Jakob Bohme withdrew into long hours of contemplation,
achieving inner illumination. The illusion of being set apart
as a special agent of divinity frequently degenerates into
paranoiac delusions of grandeur. When a person has the
mental stability to keep the conviction of divine favor under
control and exceptional magnetism or capacity for leader-
ship, the chances are good that a new cult will be bom.

While Madame Blavatsky was creating the Theosophical
Society in New York City during the autumn of 1874, not
far away in Lynn, Massachusetts, Mary Baker Eddy was
also laboring to bring forth a cult. The first edition of Sci-
ence and Health was published in 1875. Although the two
cults were virtually twins, resemblance stops there. The-
osophy lacked the popular appeal of Christian Science, with
its practical guides to health, wealth, and happiness. Mad-
ame Blavatsky was fascinated by occultism and addressed
herself to the more limited group preoccupied with mys-

ENTER MADAME

tery, premonitions, telepathy, and supernormal phenomena.
Ultimately she added a very popular provision. Whereas
most religions depend for comfort on promises of happiness
in another world, she offered spiritual first aid. In India she
adapted the Hindu doctrines of Reincarnation through
many lives, and Karma, the theory of compensation by
which we shall be rewarded or punished in our next incarna-
tion as we do well or ill in this life.

The idea of being singled out for divine revelations
strongly appealed to H.P.B. It healed certain early wounds
to her pride. But she could not have conventional Christian
visions because her rebellion had been especially violent
against the church. The Swedenborgian heaven peopled
with hundreds of thousands of angels was not for her. Nor
could she continue to support the cult for which she had
lately beeri willing to "sell her soul.” Suddenly she turned,
denied that she had ever really accepted spiritualism, and
attacked its fraudulent and demoralizing practices. Her
bridges burned, she was free to create her own indigenous
hierarchy. After two false starts she evolved the Mahatmas
or Masters, a mysterious Brotherhood modelled on the mo-
nastic orders of Buddhism and Christianity, but isolated in
the most inaccessible portion of the earth’s surface, the in-
terior of Tibet. As elder brothers of mankind, "old souls,”
they had completed their round of incarnations upon this
earth, but they returned in ghostly presence to give advice
to those worthy to receive it: the Theosophists. H.P.B.
claimed that she had undergone several years of rigorous
training in Tibet and had been appointed sole intermediary
between the Mahatmas and mankind.

Madame established a regimen for her probationers and
chelas (students) based on the ascetic practices of Indian
yogis: no meat, no liquor, no smoking, chastity, and the use
of meditation as a means of personal discipline. Chelas who
followed this austere program might hope to achieve super-
natural powers and privileged relations with the Mahatmas

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

in tiiis life. It is a clever concept. It is difficult really to in-
terest people in a world beyond the Unknown. Death drops
a curtain. Madame Blavatsky promised to by-pass death,
and to admit her chelas to a secret cosmos that lay all about
them, invisible and inaccessible except to the initiate. By
becoming sole intermediary between them and this secret
universe, she wielded extraordinary power. All hope of prog-
ress for the chela depended on keeping in her good graces.
She also reserved a way out for emergencies. Because no
human chela could hope to fulfil completely the ascetic re-
quirements, any failure to achieve the anticipated super-
natural rewards could be blamed on his own shortcomings.
Ingeniously H.P.B. had streamlined the mystical yearnings
of the immemorial East to a western schedule of immediate
and tangible rewards. In its field, Theosophy had every-
thing.

In order to convince a sceptical world of the reality of her
Mahatmas, Madame dipped freely into the occultism-magic
school of theosophy, promoting spectacular miracles during
her residence in India. They aroused world-wide curiosity
and brought down upon her in 1884 an investigation by the
Society for Psychical Research, an organization of English
intellectuals predisposed in favor of supernormal phenom-
ena, but insisting on the use of honest methods. Its book-
length report pronounced Madame “one of the most ac-
complished, ingenious and interesting impostors in history.”
During the seven final years of her life, Madame Blavatsky
reached the summit of her power and influence. Bamum
made a world reputation on the thesis that people like to be
fooled. Perhaps being called an ingenious impostor helped
rather than hindered Madame. Her disciples carried her
back to London and installed her in a mansion. London so-
ciety was curious to see her, and the moody lioness became
the rage. F. Marion Crawford put her into his most popular
novel, Mr. Isaacs, and made one of her Mahatmas the hero.
Peers and belted earls and their ladies, scientists, savants.

ENTER MADAME

and explorers thronged her drawing room. Even the Church
of England, thundering against her on Sunday, peeked at
her on Monday. Leaning back against the cushions at one
of her soirees, Madame watched the wife of the Archbishop
of Canterbury sitting primly on a front row chair and watch-
ing her.

An impressive list of people subscribed to Theosophy un-
der the glamour of H.P.B. Exclusive of that lunatic fringe
which hovers about all cults, she reached an audience sev-
eral cuts mentally above the average church congregation.
The obscurity of her doctrinal writings discouraged idle
curiosity and tended to eliminate the sluggards. The extrava-
gance of her claims involved her disciples in exhausting con-
troversies. They wrote treatises, tributes, sardonic confes-
sions of disillusionment, called names, sued for libel, went
crazy, committed suicide, and left behind them a dizzy stack
of literature agitating the perennial question: Was She a
Charlatan?

Modem generations removed from the magic of Madame
Blavatsky’s presence and the hypnotic power in the depths
of her azure eyes may appraise her impersonally. Her super-
natural claims seem fantastic, her trickery seems obvious.
Such an estimate misses the point: Madame’s greatness,
which makes her a vital force to a limited public even today,
lay in her power of suggestion. After hurling defiance in the
teeth of the polite world, she whirled around and forced it
to take her seriously. She compelled susceptible intellectuals
to believe in her and try to do what she wished. She had un-
canny power over people.

Such eminent scientists as Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir
William Crookes, and Thomas A. Edison became members
of her Theosophical Society. William Ewart Gladstone be-
stowed upon Madame and her pupil Annie Besant the acco-
lade of a critical article in The Nineteenth Century and
After. When Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate of Eng-
land, died, a copy of Madame’s mystical poem, The Voice of

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

the Silence, lay on the table beside his bed. Many distin-
guished literary men paid her extravagant tribute. J. D.
Beresford, the novelist, not himself a Theosophist, found
no difficulty in accepting her claim to supernormal powers
and considered that “in the recorded history of the past
6,000 years or so there has been no woman so deserving of
our interest as Madame Blavatsky.”

Ironically enough, by 1920 Madame Blavatsky’s name
had temporarily disappeared from the Theosophists’ maga-
zines, her books from their counters. Neophytes were re-
ferred to the writings of her successor, the prolific Annie
Besant (372 titles in her 1924 bibliography) and the only
slightly less prolific Leadbeater. Mrs. Besant inherited a po-
sition giving her autocratic power by virtue of Madame Bla-
vatsky’s pet devices, vows of secrecy and blind obedience
required of all members admitted to the inner councils. Al-
most the first use made of this dictatorial power was an at-
tempt to banish the memory of H.P.B. and set up strange
gods, but the dead Blavatsky had more vitality than her liv-
ing successors. Mrs. Besant’s official endorsement of her
astral Svengali, Mr. Leadbeater, and his perverse policies re-
sulted in a succession of scandals and a startling turnover in
membership, almost complete in some years.

Between 1921 and 1929 the parent Theosophical Society
at Adyar enrolled 50,000 new members, but the 1929 total
of 43,000 showed a net gain over 1921 of only 3,000. It had
taken in 50,000 new members, but had lost virtually all of
its old followers. Indignant Theosophists, unwilling to con-
done violations of their codes of honor and decency under
pretext of occult sanctions, resigned wholesale. Entire na-
tional sections seceded. A dozen competing organizations
came into the field. The total membership of the various
sects, including the disillusioned who resign in protest
against current policies but remain Theosophists at heart,
reading the literature and cherishing Madame’s memory,
must run well over 100,000, and may be several times that

ENTER MADAME

number. The readers of Theosophical literature provide a
market for a nice little publishing business, judging by the
numerous fifty- and seventy-five-page catalogs of Theosoph-
ical books issued, with H.P.B’s classics selling at from seven
to ten dollars each. Over-all figures are not available because
some Societies hold all information secret.

Rebellion against the Besant-Leadbeater heresies came
to a head in the early 1920’s with the creation of a Back-to-
Blavatsky movement devoted to reviving her influence and
encouraging reprints of her books, then out of print. Dis-
tressed Theosophists flocked to the new movement, which
they hoped would slough off the abuses of Neo-Theosophy
and bring back the influence and teachings of H.P.B. They
organized an independent association, published their own
magazines and pamphlets and issued a seven-point program
(seven is a mystic number). They would organize a working
center in London; hold meetings and classes to study the
teachings of H.P.B. ; gather information from literary and
scientific sources in her support; form a lending library of
her books and sympathetic commentaries; publish new edi-
tions of her works, using original texts (which they consid-
ered to have been mutilated and altered by Annie Besant);
promote correspondence with inquirers all over the world,
and elucidate and seek the realization of H.P.B’s ideals. An
important activity not included in this list was that of fol-
lowing up current articles on H.P.B. and, in case of unfa-
vorable comment, securing retractions and apologies. They
at once became involved with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who
was attacking Madame in his books and magazine articles
and stoutly refused to budge from his position.

The Back-to-Blavatsky Movement received fresh impetus
in 1938 with the organization of the Society of the Friends
of Madame Blavatsky, under the aggressive leadership of
an Englishwoman, Mrs. Beatrice Hastings. Within three
months of its organization the Society had enrolled mem-
bers in fifteen countries. Its avowed purpose is to secure the

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

withdrawal of the Report of the Society for Psychical Re-
search, which branded Madame an impostor. The Society
has published a series of concise, well-written pamphlets—
by Mrs. Hastings— dealing with a few of the many contro-
versial episodes in Madame’s life and furnishing adroit an-
swers to criticisms by infidels. It is also alert to attack the
good faith and reputation of writers and speakers who pre-
sume to criticize Madame Blavatsky adversely.

Any effort to discover the truth about Madame Blavatsky
must surmount the difficulty of her having tampered with
much of her source material. A standard biographical sketch
by A. P. Sinnett 2 quotes at length from memoirs by Mad-
ame’s sister and aunt; these were actually written under
Madame’s supervision and in large part at her dictation
after she founded the Theosophical Society, and were there-
fore slanted to support her claims of supernatural relation-
ships and powers. After the death of H.P.B. her sister Vera
publicly apologized for lending herself to such deception.
(See Appendix A, page 318.)

While Madame’s hypnotic influence demagnetized a
broad area, leaving few authentic sources, it did not destroy
the interest of these stories of her own invention, but actu-
ally added to it. Her turning biographical data into a phan-
tasmagoria makes them more intimately revealing of her
inner self than a sober account of what actually happened.
It was one of her strange whims to give herself an artlessly
sinister background. She passed her entire young life
through a bath of abnormality and decadence. Her need to
pretend these morbid incidents is far more revealing of
Helena Blavatsky and her pathological trends than the con-
ventional story of a spoiled daughter of the Russian aristoc-
racy.

2 A. P. Sinnett: Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky. ( Hereafter
referred to in the notes as Sinnett: Incidents. )

CHAPTER II

"DANSE MACABRE

( 1831 — 1848 )

BOGUS COUNTS and Princes have found happy hunting
grounds in the United States; we scarcely expect smooth-
talking foreigners to prove their titles. Madame Blavatsky
was not a Countess, and in due time she prudently dis-
claimed the de Blavatsky and the coroneted calling card
with which she had dazzled Colonel Olcott. She was well
bom, however: her maternal ancestors traced their lineage
back to a ninth-century Grand Duke Boris, one of the three
Princes of Rus, pillars of the Russian aristocracy, founders
of the Russian Empire. Madame’s mother, Helene Fadeev,
was a daughter of the Princess Helene Dolgoruki and An-
drez Mikhailovich Fadeev, Privy Councillor of the Cauca-
sus. Madame’s mother was only sixteen when she married a
Russian captain of horse artillery, Peter Hahn, whose family
came originally from the petty nobility of Mecklenburg.
Soon after the wedding, the young Captain received orders
to join his regiment for service in the notably ruthless cam-
paign to put down the Polish insurrection of 1831.

The girl wife returned to her parents in Ekaterinoslav in
the heart of the Ukraine, and it was there that Helena was
born on the night of August 12, 1831 (July 30, on the Rus-

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

sian calendar). Local lore credited this one night in the year
with conferring magical powers upon its progeny, ability to
control the domovois (goblins) and witches that infested
the countryside.

In addition to the blood and terror of the Polish cam-
paign, the year 1831 had many other sinister associations. It
witnessed the beginning of a plague of cholera that, sweep-
ing through Europe, almost exterminated entire cities. It
was a year of terror, death, coffins, lamentation, and mourn-
ing. From the moment of Helena’s birth, malevolent cir-
cumstances attended little “Lolo,” her mother’s pet name
for her. She was bom prematurely, and a hurried baptism
was arranged. The priest in lace-trimmed vestments and his
long-haired acolytes in golden robes assembled in the center
of the stately drawing room. Scores of relatives and a retinue
of serfs, holding lighted tapers according to the Greek Or-
thodox rite, crowded about the priest, the three pairs of god-
parents, and the puny baby. Lolo’s three-year-old aunt stood
in the front row of sponsors as proxy for a relative. The cere-
mony droned on for nearly an hour, and the child aunt,
overcome by drowsiness, quietly settled herself on the floor
for a nap, letting the taper fall from her hand. Instantly the
priest’s lace-bordered vestment caught fire and panic swept
the room. Several people were burned and scarred, the old
priest quite severely.

Behind the facade of Helena’s stories of an unhappy child-
hood looms an implacable and overpowering background
that may well have given direction to the fantasies of an im-
pressionable child. Her neurotic tendencies were doubtless
exaggerated by the effect on an unstable nature of war and
pestilence in the Russia of the 1830’s. Nature provided a
background of brooding terror, the wail of winter winds, the
dead weight of snow and ice crowding down on puny man,
shutting him in upon himself, threatening to maim or kill
him if he relaxed his vigilance. Helena received her indelible
first impressions of life from superstitious peasant nurses

DANSE MACABRE

who put their trust in primitive rites and black magic. Her
own relatives were subject to the same delusions, for the
highest in the land surrendered to the dark seductions of
witchcraft and sorcery. Even half a century later, the heads
of the state and the royal family were terrorized pawns in
the clutch of a degenerate, maniacal peasant, Rasputin, who
conducted his diablerie in the name of religion and under
the protection of the State Church.

At the close of the Polish campaign, Madame Hahn and
Lolo rejoined the Captain at the station in southern Russia
where he was leading raids against the mountain tribes of
the Caucasus. The brutal background of these army camps
must also have had its effect upon the child. Captain Hahn
had been educated as a member of the Imperial Cadet
Corps, limited to the sons of the nobility but maintaining
standards of discipline that, as described by Prince Kropot-
kin, also a member of the Corps, seem barbarously severe.
A cadet caught smoking might receive a thousand blows
with a birch rod before the assembled Corps, a doctor stand-
ing by to intervene when the boy’s pulse was about to stop
beating. The Corps director was replaced as a mollycoddle
if he did not have a few such cases every year.

Intolerant of the liberal policies of the late Czar Alex-
ander I, his brother, Czar Nicholas demanded of his army
ever greater severity and more repressive methods in his de-
termination to build an invincible military machine. Condi-
tions among the muzhiks, the peasant soldiery, can scarcely
be imagined. Serfs called for military duty were guarded to
prevent their committing suicide. Officers punished the
most trivial faults with kicks and floggings. If a soldier died
under punishment, the specified number of blows was com-
pleted upon his corpse . 1

Garrison life was no place for weaklings. It was rough fare
for the daughter of a Princess. Helena’s mother, young
Madame Hahn, found escape in a literary career. Under the
1 Prince P. Kropotkin: Memoirs of a Revolutionist, p. 55.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

pen name Zenaida R-, she wrote a dozen successful novels
during the next decade and, using her work as an excuse,
made long visits to Saint Petersburg, where she was well
known in literary circles. The critic Belinsky extolled her as
the George Sand of Russia; another noted critic, Senkovsky
(known as Baron Brambens), was her intimate friend. Pro-
testing against the boredom and vulgarity of army life, Ze-
naida’s stories sketched a world where the men were cads
and cowards, women invariably the victims, sometimes of
man's lust, sometimes of the cruelty of provincial gossip.
The stories reflected a pitiful disillusionment.

Although Madame Blavatsky later made abundant use
of her distinguished relatives for publicity, she built a wall
of silence around her famous mother. Madame Hahn was
only twenty-eight when she died; in her brief life she had
borne two daughters and a son and written a dozen novels.
She lived until her Lolo was twelve years old, but Helena
tried to obscure this fact with the statement: “Mother died
when I was a baby.” 2 Predating her mother’s death by ten
years was an easy way to avoid discussing her. But why?

Helena grew from a sickly babe into a problem child, re-
bellious, subject to hysteria and convulsions. On her death
bed Madame Hahn said sadly, “Ah well, perhaps it is best
that I am dying, so at least I shall be spared seeing what be-
falls Helena. Of one thing I am certain, her life will not be
as that of other women, and she will have much to suffer.” 8

This unhappy fragment is the sole memorial of a twelve-
year relationship between a gifted woman and her daugh-
ter. It suggests friction and a sharp conflict of wills. Helena
resented her mother’s long absences, her intimate friend-
ships in the bohemian world of letters, as a desertion of her
home and of Helena herself. The child’s conservative pride
was affronted by Zenaida’s failure to be commonplace like
other mothers. Madame Blavatsky’s prolific memories of

2 Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, p. 150. ( Hereafter referred
to in the notes as Letters H.P.B . )

8 Lucifer, November 1894.

DANSE MACABRE

her youth ran back to her fourth year; she excluded her
mother from them because her mother had hurt her pride.
She was concealing quarrels and scenes that had left scars
she wanted to forget.

From infancy Helena was described as showing symp-
toms of a neurotic disposition, walking and talking in her
sleep at the age of four, displaying morbid tendencies, lov-
ing the weird and fantastic. For days at a time she would
refuse to play with the other children and stand whispering
to herself; if her governess tried to divert her from this “pro-
fane gibberish” she would fly into a tantrum. Her earliest
memory was appropriately macabre. The country side at
Ekaterinoslav was haunted by russalkas, green-haired
nymphs living in willow trees along the river banks. When
her nurses crossed her imperious young will, Helena used
to threaten to have the russalkas tickle them to death. As a
child of four she was walking with her nurse beside the river
when the fourteen-year-old serf who followed them, pulling
her perambulator, annoyed her. Imitating her father’s roars
at an offending muzhik, she turned on the boy and
screamed, “I will have you tickled to death by a russalka.
There’s one coming down from that tree. . . . Here she
comes. . . . See! See!!” The boy took to his heels over the
river bank and was never again seen alive. When fishermen
recovered his body weeks later, her family assumed that the
lad had accidentally stepped into a sand-pit whirlpool. But
the household serfs knew better. They knew that four-year-
old Helena had withdrawn her protection from the boy and
delivered him up to the vicious russalkas .* It is significant
that Madame should want to accuse herself of homicide at
the age of four, and that she should choose for her victim a
boy ten years her senior.

Helena’s only happy childhood memories were of the
years between six and twelve spent in her father’s army
camps. Petted and spoiled as the enfant du regiment, she

4 Sinnett: Incidents, p. 16.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

tyrannized over her father’s orderlies, whom she vastly pre-
ferred to female nurses and governesses. She loved her front-
row seat in a man’s world, vyaited on by a troop of artillery,
riding horseback like a little Cossack, galloping across the
Siberian steppes to visit primitive villages and pick up a
smattering about shamans and magic that she put to good
use in later life.

On his wife’s death the Captain, forced to plan for the
future of his daughters, realized that army camps were most
unsuitable for little girls. This time Helena protested in
vain; her father escorted the two children back to their
grandparents for the difficult years of their adolescence.
Looking back, Helena was almost as reticent about her fa-
ther as about her mother. Her only childhood story about
him was of a tempestuous scene in Bath. She was fourteen,
and the Captain had taken her for a tour of Europe and
England, but the only memory she had preserved was of
going to bed with hysterics because he refused to permit her
to ride astride, Cossack fashion, down the crescents and
terraces of the fashionable watering-place.

Helena’s grandfather, Andrew Fadeev, had been ap-
pointed Civil Governor of Saratov, a semi-Asiatic city on
the Volga, lying two hundred miles north of the present
Stalingrad, where, a century later, Helena’s countrymen
turned the tide of German invasion. The Governor’s palace
was a rambling eighteenth-century castle, honeycombed
with underground passages. For Helena these dungeons
were haunted by the ghosts of serfs who had been beaten to
•jdeath or had starved and rotted in their chains. Despite
gruesome stories of a young girl tortured to death in the
1700’s for refusing to accept the advances of her aged mas-
ter, Helena was fascinated by these catacombs and in order
to escape from her lessons, built herself a crypt, barricaded
with old chairs and tables where she hid and read a book of
magic, Solomons Wisdom. When the governess complained

The inscrutable Madame looks deep into your eyes

DANSE MACABRE

of her absences, her grandfather sent powerful serfs in charge
of a gendarme to bring her upstairs by force. If she was miss-
ing from her bed at night, her elders knew they would find
her pacing these dark and musty tunnels in her sleep.

The fortunate circumstance of an independent account
of the Fadeev household supplements our picture of Hel-
ena’s girlhood and adds perspective to the two-dimensional
melodrama of her stories. Her grandmother, Madame Fa-
deev, nee the Princess Dolgoruki was a grande dame of the
old school. She supervised the succession of governesses
who attempted to teach Helena; a little later, Helena’s
cousin. Count Sergei Yulievich Witte, learned his letters at
her knee. The Count in his memoirs drew an admiring and
tender picture of his grandmother.® He remembered the old
Princess being wheeled down the palace corridor to his
schoolroom and his kneeling beside her, holding up his
primer so that she might look on. In spite of years of isola-
tion at remote provincial outposts with her husband, the
Governor General, Helena’s grandmother was a remarkably
versatile woman. She spoke five languages, painted, knew
a good deal about science for her day, was beloved for her
humanity and generosity. She corresponded with distin-
guished men in many fields; an English geologist named a
fossil shell for her, the Venus F adeef! She could have been
an inspiring influence, but Helena, full of her own precocity,
had no more to say about her than about her parents.

Madame Fadeev’s hobby was botany. On those remote
Russian steppes she devoted an entire wing of her palace to
an important collection of Caucasian flora. They were
neatly labelled with Latin names and scientific descriptions
in a day when interest in natural history and the building
of museums were almost unknown. Count Witte remem-
bered only her botanical specimens, but Helena and her
sister Vera had more colorful memories of stuffed animals

B Count Witte: Memoirs .

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

and birds, ostriches, seals, crocodiles, and especially a white
flamingo with long piercing beak, its wings outspread, scar-
let-lined as though dripping blood, waiting to take flight.
The Princess’s library was at the far end of the museum
wing and every evening after supper in the nursery, the chil-
dren must say good-night to her, walking down the echoing
corridors in the twilight between ghostly shadow shapes.
The timid Vera tip-toed in a hurry, her eyes averted from
the frightening monsters, but Helena sauntered at her ease
and took advantage of the eerie atmosphere to play upon
the other children’s fears. For her the flamingo was serving
an eternity of punishment: he had been changed into a
brainless bird for a murder committed when he was a man;
now he was condemned to wander forever in deserts and
marshes, his white wings sprinkled with the blood of his
victim.

Stimulated by her playmates’ terror, Helena elaborated
her yams; her favorite stage setting was the sandy bottom
of a prehistoric lake that yielded petrified relics, stones bear-
ing the imprint of fishes and plants. Lying on her stomach,
her elbows buried in the sand, she conjured up a vision of a
battle of sea monsters waged on this very spot in ages past.
She made the children see a mass of cool green water over
their heads, with sunbeams piercing through to cast rain-
bow lights on the golden sand, the glowing coral reefs and
stalactite caves; feathery green grasses and sea anemones
waved to and fro and were transformed into mermaids and
sea monsters. Suddenly Helena sat up, voice and manner
brusquely changed. “Just fancy, a miracle” she told the chil-
dren, “the earth suddenly opening, the air condensing
around us and re-becoming sea waves . . . Look . . . Look
. . . there they begin already appearing and moving. We
are surrounded with water, we are right amid the mysteries
and wonders of a submarine world. . . .” Helena sprang to
her feet, her face contorted with terror, her voice hoarse
with fright. For an instant she faced the oncoming wave.

DANSE MACABRE

then fell upon the sand screaming and sobbing, “There’s
the wave ... it has come . . . the sea . . . the sea . . .
we are drowning . . . !!” And such was her power of sug-
gestion that all her little audience hysterically fell on their
faces, screaming, shuddering, convinced that the sea had
engulfed them and that it was indeed the end . 6

Helena Hahn’s account of her childhood gives an im-
pression of a self-conscious and self-centered girl, talented
and versatile but notably lacking in warmth of affection.
She had no tender memories of any relative or friend; the
appreciation of her grandmother came from Count Witte,
not from Helena. Her one concern was to draw a convincing
picture of a child who from the cradle had commerce with
spirits and sinister rites. But she tried too hard: the picture
is overexposed. The discovery of a hypnotic power over her
playmates was the most important experience of her child-
hood. It all began with the age-old custom of telling stories.
The game of make-believe is universal, a phase of childhood
usually discarded with dolls and toys. For Helena, however,
this cardboard power to dominate, to frighten, perhaps to
kill, had an abnormal fascination. She centered her life
about this power, building upon this fragile foundation a
complex emotional appeal approximating a religion.

Just in time to provide a more gorgeous setting for Hel-
ena’s debut. General Fadeev was appointed Imperial Coun-
cillor to the Viceroy of the Caucasus, and the family moved
from Saratov to an even more imposing palace in Tiflis. Be-
fore long, invitations to a Viceroy’s ball created an impasse.
Sixteen-year-old Helena refused to go. She was smarting
over an unhappy love affair with Prince Alexander Galitsin,
who had been constantly at the Fadeevs’ paying court to
Helena. An eligible beau, a cousin of the Viceroy’s, he had
especially attracted Helena because of his interest in occult-
ism and magic. Indeed, Helena may well owe her career and
her followers their Theosophy to the abiding influence of
6 Sinnett: Incidents, p. 27.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

this brief love affair. Helena claimed that their engagement
was broken by the death of the Prince; actually he had jilted
her, leaving Tiflis abruptly. 7

Glooming in the wreckage of young love, Helena vowed
that she would not attend the Viceroy’s ball. But attend-
ance was obligatory upon families of the official staff and
her grandfather sent word that, if necessary, the maids
would dress her by force. Helena wrote in her scrap book:

“I then deliberately plunged my foot and leg into a kettle
of boiling water and held it there until nearly boiled raw.
Of course I scalded it horribly and remained at home for six
months.” She added a curious non sequitur to the incident,
trying to fit it into her later advocacy of asceticism. She
wrote: “I tell you there is nothing of the woman in me.
When I was young, if a young man had dared to speak to
me of love, I would have shot him like a dog who bit me.” 8

On the rebound from this distressing affair, Helena
Hahn, a few weeks later, accepted the man whose name she
carried through life. Three weeks before her seventeenth
birthday, on July 7, 1848, Helena married General Nice-
phore Blavatsky, Vice-Governor of the neighboring prov-
ince of Erivan on the Armenian border. Seeking to divert
attention from Prince Galitsin, Helena sponsored numer-
ous explanations of this marriage. She called the General
her “plumeless raven,” and said that he was seventy or
eighty years old; actually he outlived her and was about
forty at the time of their marriage. Her favorite story put
the responsibility for the marriage upon her governess, who,
scolding her for her tempers and tantrums, said that no man
would dare to marry her, that she could not get even old
General Blavatsky. Three days later, she had brought the
General to his knees. Helena claimed that her family would
not let her back out. It seems incongruous that the head-

7 Theosophist , July 1913.

8 H. P. Blavatsky: unpublished Scrapbook #22. See Mary K. Neff: Per-
sonal Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky, p. 32.

DANSE MACABRE

strong girl who parboiled her leg rather than go to a party
should meekly submit to a repulsive marriage.

After a honeymoon of three unhappy months in Erivan,
Helena managed to outwit the General’s Cossack body-
guard, secure a horse, and escape over mountain trails back
to Tiflis. Perhaps the General was secretly glad to let her
go. Certainly her grandfather was not glad to have her back.
He could scarcely harbor the runaway bride of his colleague
and he promptly shipped her off to her father in charge of
a maid and three men servants. Colonel Hahn, retired and
living near Saint Petersburg, traveled two thousand miles
to Odessa to meet Helena, but he had his trip for nothing.
She contrived to miss the steamer and to give her escort the
slip. She sailed away— some say eloped— with the skipper of
an English bark bound for Constantinople.

Barely seventeen years old, Helena had set out alone upon
her vagabond years, leaving a deserted husband in Erivan,
an irate grandfather in Tiflis, an enraged father pacing the
docks at Odessa. For the next ten years she dropped out of
their lives as completely as though she were dead.

CHAPTER III

THE VAGABOND YEARS

( '1848—187))

WHEN Helena was finally translated from sinner to saint,
she sought to obscure the second period of her life with
recklessly conflicting tales. In imitation of the famous saints
who isolated themselves for meditation and training, H.P.B.
claimed that between the ages of seventeen and forty-two
she devoted herself to the study of occultism, circumnavi-
gating the globe three times in her quest of the formulas of
magic, alchemy, and the black arts.

Her contradictory stories and overlapping dates served
two purposes. Spreading a smoke screen over the period
made it easier to deny charges of scandalous conduct; after
her creation of Theosophy she was determined to establish
several years' residence in Tibet as a pupil of the Mahatmas,
and this required juggling previously told stories of her ad-
ventures. She carried this confusion policy so far that her
apologists explain that she was ordered by her Masters to
conceal the true facts. Theosophists attempting to furnish a
chronology of her life are reduced to printing alternative
versions in parallel columns.

Four of Madame’s conflicting stories about the year 1851
illustrate the impossibility of reconciling her recollections.

THE VAGABOND YEARS

She had married and deserted her husband three years
earlier, in 1848.

(x) Helena spent the summer of 1851 with General Bla-
vatsky at Daraschi-Tchag, a resort on the plain of Mount
Ararat. The bravest man in her husband’s bodyguard was
detailed as her personal escort, and he was the Kurd warrior
whose spirit appeared at the Eddy farm stance. (New York
Graphic, December 1, 1874, and Olcott: People from the
Other World, p. 320).

(2) After welcoming the New Year of 1851 in Paris with
the Countess Bagration, she visited Quebec in July. There
she met her first American Indians, and they all “settled
down for a long gossip over the mysterious doings of the
medicine men.” * (Sinnett, Incidents in the Life of Mme.
Blavatsky, p. 46).

(3) Helena was in London, staying at Mivart’s Hotel
with the old Countess Bagration and afterward at a big
hotel between the City and the Strand, the name of which
she had forgotten. Her father was not with her. ( Letters of
H.P.B. to A. P. Sinnett, p. 1 50).

(4) In London with her father in July, she encountered
one of the Mahatmas in Hyde Park, was commissioned to
found the Theosophical Society, and dedicated the rest of
her life to the service of the Masters. (Countess Wacht-
meister: Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky, pp. 56-8).

(5) It is almost too much to find H.P.B’s spokesman and
successor, Annie Besant, pushing her meeting with the Mas-
ter ahead to 1853 and sending her in 1851 to almost the
only spot in the world not already mentioned, South Amer-
ica! (Annie Besant: H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of
Wisdom, p. 11).

It would be a weariness to attempt to untangle the vast
ball of yams that H.P.B. wove about these vagabond years,
incoherent, unrelated fragments. She made most of her

* No one who has ever known an American Indian can imagine his
unbending to confide in a passing tourist.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

travel talk ambiguous, forgetting dates, using “Mr. K.” or
a vague description instead of a name. She met a “young
Englishman” in Germany. Later she sent for him to join
her and “a Hindu mystic” in Mexico, and the three trav-
elled half way round the world, landing in Bombay toward
the end of 1852.

An exception to this nebulous style was an incident
tucked into the last pages of Isis Unveiled, almost as an
afterthought. It is important because it is one of the very
few stories that even vaguely support H.P.B’s claim of train-
ing with the Mahatmas in Tibet. Her vows of secrecy could
apply to anything inconvenient to discuss, and she was elu-
sive as a will-o’-the-wisp about places, routes, dates, and
names. She even shifted responsibility for the following
story by attributing it to a manuscript confided to her by
an ex-parson, Mr. K.

The incident began in 1856 with her meeting Mr. K.,
mystic and former Lutheran minister, in Lahore. He was
with two other mystics, the brothers N., and said that he
knew her father, who had asked him “to try if he could find
his errant daughter.” When Helena learned that they were
planning to enter Tibet, she joined what must have been a
singularly unsophisticated party. Tibet is subject to China’s
influence, and the general policy has been, and still is, to
refuse passports. This policy of Tibetan isolation had been
assisted by the country’s inaccessibility, its elevation, arctic
climate, and natural mountain barriers. No army has ever
crossed Tibet, and only a handful of explorers had then pen-
etrated its borders. As no reprovisioning would be possible,
a traveler would require elaborate and expensive equipment:
pack train, coolies, interpreter, tents, bedding, stoves,
enough consumable supplies for a return trip— food, water,
and fuel.

Helena’s associates seem to have set out as casually as boy
scouts taking a weekend hike. They had little equipment,
neither passports nor interpreter, and none of them spoke

THE VAGABOND YEARS

the language. Mr. K. never crossed the border, for he was
prostrated by fever while still in India and was forced to give
up and return to Lahore. The brothers N., having no pass-
ports, were picked up and deported back to India before
they had travelled sixteen miles in the forbidden territory.
Helena, without a passport, wearing a disguise furnished by
a mysterious Tartar shaman, and under supernatural guid-
ance, penetrated “far into the interior of this inaccessible
country.” 1

Although Mr. K. was not allowed to enter Tibet, he ac-
companied the party as far as the mud village of Leli in the
province of Ladakh, where they witnessed a miracle in a
Buddhist monastery. The Chief Lama refused to admit
them to the compound until Helena exhibited a carnelian
talisman given to her when she was a child by a high priest
of a Calmuck tribe. The party then watched the rites at-
tending the incarnation of a four-month-old infant who was
lying on a carpet in the center of a great hall. Under the in-
fluence of a venerable lama, the baby rose to its feet and
walked up and down the strip of carpet, repeating, “I am
Buddha, I am the old Lama, I am his spirit in a new body.”
The three men in Helena’s party were terrified. Mr. K. said
that his blood ran cold, for the infant’s eyes “seemed to
search his very soul.”

' This incarnation story was merely an elaboration of ad-
ventures in Tibetan lamaseries to be found in the Abbe
Hue’s standard work of history embroidered with fantasy.
Recollections of Travel in Tartary, Thibet and China. As
told by Helena, it was of dubious value except for its psy-
chological significance. For in this fantasy Madame Blavat-
sky showed her craving to surpass the exploits of mere men
and a formidable jealousy of their role. Not only did she
travel successfully in Tibet where the three men had all
failed, but also it was her carnelian talisman that admitted
them to the one notable experience of the trip.

1 H. P. Blavatsky: Isis Unveiled, II, p. 599.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

It is a tribute to Madame’s persuasiveness that several ex-
plorers who contrived to reach Lhasa, the capital of Tibet,
took the trouble to inquire about the Mahatmas. William
Woodville Rockhill, who, as Secretary of the American Le-
gation in Pekin, had for many years unique opportunities to
explore Tibet, reported that the Lamas were surprised and
amused when told about the claims of Theosophy. In the
famous monastery at Serok with seven hundred Lamas, they
told him that although saints and sages in ancient times
doubtless performed miracles, not even the wisest and most
revered among them possessed such power today, and they
solemnly warned him that his informants were imposing on
his credulity and were probably heretics! 2

The alleged period of residence in Tibet was another diffi-
culty. Originally H.P.B. had claimed seven years, but her
own stories left no seven-year period free. Her disciples tried
to settle for an accumulation of seven years, but that did not
work out either. The period dropped to three years, and
even that did not fit. Finally it was explained that, as an ad-
vanced adept, H.P.B. did not have to bother about pack
trains and consecutive years. She visited Tibet every night,
if she desired, in her astral body, leaving her physical body
at home in bed. True believers are quite satisfied with this
interpretation. After all, the faithful in any cult are not so
much concerned to discover facts as to continue to believe
the things they want to believe. The chief value of Theoso-
phy and of all cults is to provide a means of escape when
life becomes too grim.

A travel schedule that took Helena three times around
the world with numerous side jaunts raises the prosaic ques-
tion: Who paid the bills?

Madame told a New York interviewer in 1874 that she
was an heiress and a successful business woman. The Count-
ess Bagration had left her $40,000, which would have been
much more “if I had been with her before her death/’ A

2 William Woodville Rockhill: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet.

THE VAGABOND YEARS

little later, travelling in the Sudan, she made a small fortune
buying ostrich feathers for a penny and selling them for
from twenty-five to thirty dollars apiece. Unfortunately she
dropped most of this money at the gaming tables of Ham-
burg and Baden-Baden . 8

Theosophists rarely quote this interview; they prefer one
of H.P.B’s less spectacular explanations: that her father al-
ways had money waiting for her at cities agreed upon in ad-
vance. H.P.B. has drawn a blurred picture of her parents,
with not one incident to suggest sympathy or understand-
ing. The sparse memories of her father are unhappy: the
hysterical scene at Bath, and leaving him fuming on the
docks at Odessa. There is nothing to confirm the strange
picture of an autocratic Russian colonel acquiescing in a
surreptitious arrangement to finance the unchaperoned
travels of his fugitive daughter.

2 . prodigal's return
( 1858 )

When Helena returned to Russia after an absence of ten
years, she went first to Saint Petersburg to visit her sister and
father. Vera, a young widow, was living in the village of
Rugodevo, which she had inherited from her late husband.
Helena said that she had just come from Paris, where she
had known Daniel Home, the famous medium, who had
converted her to spiritualism, and she required little urging
to demonstrate her own mediumistic powers.

Phenomena rained down upon Helena like hailstones.
Her tobacco pouch, matches, and handkerchief came rush-
ing through the air in answer to her unspoken wish and
dropped into her lap. One night as they sat at dinner the
lamps and candles in the dining room suddenly extinguished
themselves. When the servants brought in fresh lights, the
chairs, table, and large sideboard were all lying upside down,

3 New York Graphic, November 9, 1874.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

legs sprawling in the air. Most remarkable of all, nothing
had been injured: not a plate was broken, there was not a
scratch on the polished mahogany. Sometimes the spirits
showed an impish humor. When the sisters read aloud the
memoirs of Catherine Romanovna Dashkov, which had
been heavily cut by the Russian censor, they were inter-
rupted by messages rapped out on the table supplying the
expurgated tidbits.

Colonel Hahn held himself aloof from the perpetual
clatter of Helena’s spirits; at family gatherings he occupied
himself with his game of patience, insisting that it was all
beneath his notice. Finally he consented to test his daugh-
ter’s spirit controls. Smiling behind his gray mustache, he
went into the next room to make sure that he was unob-
served while he wrote out his question for the spirits. Re-
turning, he listened sceptically as Vera repeated the alpha-
bet over and over and the spirits indicated the next letter by
raps. But when Vera showed him the word Zaitchik spelled
out by the raps, he became deathly pale. Adjusting his spec-
tacles, he took the paper in a trembling hand and then took
from his pocket the paper on which he had written: “What
was the name of my favorite war-horse, which I rode during
my first Turkish campaign?” Below this, he had written the
name Zaitchik. 4,

Impressed by this demonstration, the Colonel delighted
in testing Helena’s powers. Together, they undertook an
elaborate genealogical research with information supplied
by Helena’s spirits, filling in gaps and carrying the family
line back to the time of the first crusades against the Sara-
cens. Now that he was convinced, the Colonel did not hesi-
tate to sponsor his daughter’s powers in public. When the
police visited the village to investigate a gin-shop murder,
the Colonel brought the superintendent to consult Helena,
and she told him where to go. Sure enough, the incredulous

* Sinnett: Incidents, p. 74.

THE VAGABOND YEARS

inspector found the murderer, just as Helena had said, bur-
rowing into the haymow of a distant bam.

In an encounter with the Church, Helena also acquitted
herself with credit. Vera persuaded her sister to accompany
her to church one day: the famous Isidore, Metropolitan
of Kiev, whom they had known in Tiflis, was reading the
Mass. Recognizing them in the congregation, he sent a
monk to invite them to call on him. The moment they were
seated in the Lord Archbishop’s residence, a terrifying
hubbub set in, the furniture cracking and thumping, the
great crystal chandelier swinging violently over their heads.
Although spiritualism was outlawed in Russia by order of
the Greek Orthodox Church, the Metropolitan took the
performance in good part, asked which of the girls was the
medium, condescended to ask the spirit control a test ques-
tion, and was so impressed by the answer that he detained
the girls for three hours. In the end, he dismissed Helena
with a solemn blessing, condoning her mediumistic powers
if she used them wisely. The incident parallels the Bible
story of Christ confounding his elders in the Temple; it was
a favorite device of Helena’s to adapt to her own purposes
scenes and phrases from the life of Christ.

Helena seems to have been ridden by a haunting sense of
inferiority. To compensate, she indulged in fantasies of her
superiority over the most powerful creature in her world, in
any woman’s world, Man. As a baby girl, she frightened a
fourteen-year-old boy to his death. Three German mystics,
all men, were turned back from Tibet while she alone en-
tered the Promised Land. Now, she subjugated figures sym-
bolizing the pillars of the society she had defied: her father
for Family, the police for Government, the Metropolitan
for the Church. Triumphantly H.P B. gave these stories to
the public over her sister’s signature. Helena single-handed
against the world!

CHAPTER IV

VARIORUM EDITION

( 1848 — 181 $ )

FORTUNATELY the recollections of two independent
witnesses supplement Madame Blavatsky’s accounts of her
wander years. Sometime in 1850 or 1851, within a year or
two of leaving Russia, the runaway bride met Albert Leigh-
ton Rawson, a young American from Chester, Vermont.
His position is unique. He was the only person outside of
her family who knew both the alluring young Helena with
all the world before her and the overweight, disillusioned
woman who turned up in New York after twenty-five years
of roughing it. Author, artist, world traveler, Rawson re-
ceived among numerous honors an LL.D. from Oxford
University. When Helena first knew him, he was a pre-
cocious young scholar, fascinated by the mystery of the
East. Disguised as a Mohammedan divinity student and
travelling with Kamil Pasha as his secretary, 1 he had made
the pilgrimage to Mecca with the annual caravan.

Rawson was happy to put his knowledge of Cairo and its
secrets at the service of “the charming young widow” who,
he remembered many years later, “could fascinate the most
indifferent man in a single interview!” The gusty flavor of

1 Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, on A. L. Rawson.

VARIORUM EDITION

his admiration leaps up from the brittle pages of his memoir,
bringing to life for an instant the fragrance and magic of an
Egyptian spring a century ago . 2 He was fascinated by
Helena’s combination of femininity and masculine wilful-
ness. She often dressed in men’s clothes. Disguised as Mos-
lem dandies, the two young people loitered in the bazaars,
studied Osirian mysteries, visited Shaik Yusuf ben Makerzi,
chief of the Egyptian serpent-charmers, who taught them to
handle live snakes. Mounted on camels, they rode out to
Gizeh and the Pyramids, spending three nights in the
Pyramids of Cheops.

Rawson introduced Helena to Paulos Metamon, the fa-
mous Copt magician. They found him in a setting of
Oriental grandeur, walls hung with rare rugs and prints, a
library of astrological formulas and magical incantations in-
scribed on ancient parchments, bubbling hookahs, incense
burning in tripods, tame serpents coiling lazily among the
low velvet cushions. After salaams and tiny cups of thick,
syrupy coffee, young Rawson made his request: “We are
students who have heard of your great learning and skill in
magic, and we wish to learn at your feet.”

Compliments passed back and forth, and finally the great
man made answer. It was anticlimax, but it came down to
this: if they had the price he would be happy to oblige. For-
tunately Rawson had ample means, and Helena, who had so
far managed to escape from all her teachers, applied herself
for the next three months as an eager student of the black
arts. Enchanted with her initiation into the elements of
magic, she showed off her tricks as artlessly as a child. Re-
turning to Shepheard’s Hotel, they stopped in to see the
Countess Kissalev, a friend of the Fadeevs' whom they
happened to meet in Cairo. With a showman’s patter about
solving the mysteries of Egypt, Helena terrified the Count-
ess by letting loose a live serpent from a bag she had con-
cealed in the folds of her skirt.

* Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, February 1892.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Another afternoon, when these three had been watching
the sunset across the desert, Helena broke the silence: “I
have before me forty years in which to build a more endur-
ing fame than that of the builder of the Great Pyramid, for
who was he anyway? Only a name, an oppressor of his fellow
men. I will bless mankind by freeing them from their
mental bondage. I know I was intended to do a great work.”

“And is this visit to Egypt part of your plan?” asked the
Countess. Helena replied that Rawson and she had come to
Egypt to see the relics of an ancient civilization and that for
the present they were studying the ways of snake charmers.

At this time Helena began taking hashish. The use of
drugs to facilitate visions and fantasies is a phase of oc-
cultism that is not generally discussed, but hashish is popu-
lar in the Orient, and western devotees visiting the East are
likely to make experiments. Except for the second or going-
under stage of chloroform, hashish is the only drug that
simulates the hypnotic state. For a neophyte straining to see
visions, it has a powerful appeal: it puts our drab world
under a rose-colored magnifying glass. A ditch swells into a
roaring river, the dullest conversation sparkles with wit, the
flutter from turning the pages of a book borrows the
grandeur of a thunderstorm.

When Rawson knew Madame Blavatsky in New York
City twenty-five years after their life in Egypt, she still de-
pended on the drug. She told him that “hasheesh multiplies
one’s life a thousand fold,” and that her experiences under
its influence were as real as actual life. “It is a wonderful
drug and it clears up profound mysteries.” For Helena it
provided a thrilling extension of her powers of make-believe.

2. COUNT WITTE

A second witness immune to the pressure and bias of The-
osophy has left an authoritative account of Helena’s early
adventures. The most distinguished relative of Madame
Blavatsky’s own generation was her first cousin. Count

VARIORUM EDITION

Sergei Yulievich Witte. His mother, Madame Witte, was a
younger sister of Helena’s mother, and she and her sons,
like Helena, were members of the hospitable Fadeev house-
hold. Eighteen years Helena’s junior, Count Witte was as
familiar as she with the Fadeev menage, the brilliant grand-
mother, and all the intimate gossip and family skeletons.

Count Witte is chiefly remembered in this country as the
statesman who represented Russia during the peace negotia-
tions with Japan, conducted at Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, in 1904 on the invitation of Theodore Roosevelt. For
more than a decade the Count had been one of the most
powerful figures in the Empire, performing the duties of
Prime Minister while he held the title of Finance Minister.
He had doubled the national revenue, controlled the fluc-
tuations of the currency, resumed specie payment, and
greatly extended his country’s influence in Asia and the
Near East. Political complications following his country’s
defeat by Japan caused the Count’s retirement at the early
age of sixty, and he proceeded to write his autobiography. 8

Sketching in his family background, the Count devoted
several pages to his eccentric cousin Yelena (he used the
Russian spelling), beginning her story in 1848 when she
deserted her husband and stowed away aboard an English
craft with an obliging skipper. After an interval that presum-
ably covered the Rawson interlude, her family heard that
she was appearing as an equestrienne in a Constantinople
circus; it was there that Metrovitch, a popular operatic bass,
fell in love with her. Helena abandoned her gently swaying
white circus horse to accompany the singer on his tours of
the capitals of Europe. There was a raising of family eye-
brows when General Fadeev grimly read aloud a letter from
Metrovitch signed “your affectionate grandson.” The singer
apparently considered himself Helena’s husband, and the
family speculated about General Blavatsky's failure to se-
cure a divorce.

8 Count Witte: Memoirs.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

They had scarcely assimilated Metrovitch when the
schoolboy Witte noticed in the morning mail for his grand-
father an envelope bearing an American postage stamp; the
same day the General sourly announced another grandson!
The letter was from a young Englishman who wrote that he
and Helena were married and that she had accompanied
him on a business trip to America. He may have been the
original of the young Englishman whom Helena said she
summoned to accompany her from America to Bombay
in 1852.

After another interval the Tiflis household heard that
Helena was back in Paris and had “become the right hand”
of the celebrated medium, Daniel Home. From time to
time the family saw in the European press paragraphs they
thought referred to Helena; they identified her with a Mad-
ame Laura who was giving pianoforte concerts in London
and Paris; she had been appointed manager of the royal
choir in the court of King Milan of Servia.

The gossip about his cousin’s lurid adventures left Sergei
Witte eager to see the family black sheep, and he was disap-
pointed. She was only thirty years old, but she had already
lost her figure and put on excess weight; the Count remem-
bered that her face “bore all the traces of a tempestuous and
passionate life,” and he was shocked by her indifference to
appearances. She lolled about in loose morning wrappers,
rarely troubling herself with formal dress; “she was but a
ruin of her former self.” Yet the old Count, after a diplo-
matic career among the court beauties of Europe, paid gal-
lant tribute to Helena’s eyes, enormous, azure-colored,
sparkling in an indescribable fashion when she was ani-
mated; never again in all his life had he looked into eyes
like hers.

When Helena returned to Russia in 1858 after an absence
of ten years, she found her grandfather, General Fadeev, un-
willing to welcome the prodigal back to her old home in

VARIORUM EDITION

Tiflis. His high position made him vulnerable to indiscreet
relatives. After two years with her sister Vera at Rugodevo,
it was arranged for the sisters to visit their grandfather, driv-
ing in a coach with posthorses from Moscow to Tiflis, a
three-week trip.

The Fadeevs lived as always in feudal state, keeping open
house with an inside staff of eighty-four serfs to care for the
great household. Beneath the glittering surface elemental
forces struggled. Scores of young liberals, some of Helena’s
childhood friends, had joined the nihilists; aristocrats
though they were, their young hearts responded to the tor-
tured struggle of the Russian masses for freedom. Forced
underground by the ferocity of Imperial opposition, the
nihilists resorted to dynamite and assassination and were
punished with death and exile to Siberia. Five years later, in
1866, this revolutionary underground won an amazing vic-
tory, the freeing of the serfs.

Helena’s writings reflect little or no awareness of this
bloody ferment seething about her. She reveled in the
palace drawing rooms, discovering new beauties in the
Gobelin tapestries, gift of the Empress Catherine, loitering
in the lofty halls, lined with family portraits of bygone
Princes and Princesses Dolgoruki. Ten years in the capitals
of Europe had made her more aware of such things.

Because spiritualism was proscribed by church and state,
the young people had to delay their seances until General
Fadeev was out of the way. Each evening at precisely quarter
of eleven, his warmly muffled feet swishing softly along the
parquet floors, the General retired to his private apartment
upstairs. That was the signal for a procession of serfs to file
silently down the halls under the eyes of the old portraits,
bearing on silver trays the supper to be served in the drawing
room behind closed doors. To the popping of champagne
corks, the smart set of the Caucasus laughed and bantered
and waited impatiently to resume the weird experiences of

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

the previous evening. They were fascinated by Helena’s
boldness in striking out beyond the routine question and
answer of the conventional medium.

Helena’s spirits were untamed ghosts who stopped at
nothing, treating diseases, dictating Latin prescriptions, re-
vealing scandalous secrets about anyone so indiscreet as to
doubt their credentials. Surprising novelties kept everyone
in suspense. Mysterious letters and little souvenirs ( ap -
ports ) materialized in odd comers; Helena could change the
weight of persons and of furniture at will; when she told her
brother Leonid that he could not move the small chess
table, he found that it stood as though screwed to the floor
until she released it, when he lifted it up light as a feather.

Young Witte could not understand the craze over what
seemed to him mere sleight-of-hand: “It was apparently this
unattractive woman who turned the heads of a great many
society people in Tiflis. She did it by means of spiritualistic
seances, which she conducted in our house.” Although she
had been there before him, Witte regarded Helena as an
outsider and resented her turning his home into a seance
parlor. Night after night she took the spotlight, holding the
gilded youth of the Caucasus spellbound until dawn. Count
Vorontzov-Dashkov, the two Counts Orlov-Davidov, the
young adjutants and staff of the Grand Duke in gorgeous
uniforms, handsome Georgian Princes— they were all men
who crowded around Helena. The women stayed at home.

Begging her grandfather’s permission to return to Tiflis,
Helena had promised to mend her ways, even to patch up
matters with General Blavatsky, who, surprisingly, was will-
ing to take her back. He was now living in Tiflis, a member
of the Viceroy’s staff. The reconciliation lasted long enough
to re-establish a home, but, wrote the Count, “It was not
given to her (Helena) to walk in the paths of righteousness
for any length of time.” One day her former lover, Metro-
vitch, accosted her on the street. His golden days as a fa-
vorite were past; taking what he could get, he had signed a

VARIORUM EDITION

contract to sing Italian opera in remote Tiflis, and perhaps
he was hoping to make up with Helena. Still under the
singer's spell, she deserted her “aged” General to return to a
man at least ten years his senior!

The resulting scandal forced the couple to disappear— as
far as Kiev, which provided only a brief haven. Metrovitch
picked up enough of the language to sing in Russian opera,
and Helena, in the meantime, was renewing her girlhood
acquaintance with Prince Dundukov-Korsakov, Governor
General of Kiev. She undertook to introduce him to the
world of occultism, but her spirits took liberties with the
Governor General to which he could not accommodate him-
self even when looking into Helena’s beautiful eyes. Neither
could Helena accommodate herself to the censored and cir-
cumscribed Russia of her day. One morning Kiev found a
doggerel libelling the Prince pasted on the doorways and
telegraph posts. In the resulting investigation Helena was
implicated as author of the verses. Again she and Metro-
vitch disappeared overnight.

3. OFF THE RECORD

Agardi Metrovitch was the most sensational figure in Count
Witte’s recollections of Helena. As long as she lived she
expurgated from Theosophical literature all mention of
Metrovitch or of her illegitimate child, born in the early
1860’s. Off the record she wrote her biographer, Sinnett,
fantastic yarns to explain the scandalous rumors current
about her. When he, believing them, begged for permission
to print, she performed the ticklish task of convincing him
that these stories were dynamite without cracking his faith
in her. By one of the rare chances of the world of letters, the
record of this literary legerdemain has been preserved.

All H.P.B’s correspondence was carefully filed by Sinnett,
including these confidential letters discussing what should
and should not be printed and why. Sinnett outlived Mad-
ame by thirty years; after his death this material went to his

4 1

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

literary executor, Maude Hoffman, also a Theosophist. She
authorized the publication of everything, including the fa-
mous, secret Mahatma letters, in 1924-5. Annie Besant ex-
pelled Miss Hoffman from the Theosophical Society and
tried to boycott the books, but she could not unpublish
them. Theosophists have had a hard time assimilating this
material in public, for it is most revealing. It shows Mad-
ame’s ingenious techniques for explaining away embarrassing
situations, an almost daily routine for her. Frequently she
made the explanation so incoherent and coiled around upon
itself that the brain grew numb with fatigue and in the end
the listener murmured sleepily, “Uh-huh, I guess so.” She
wrote two such letters about Metrovitch, four thousand
words, ultra— confidential, building up a series of incredible
and yet carefully equivocal situations.

Agardi Metrovitch had been her devoted friend ever since
1850. A Hungarian from Metrovitz, he had adopted the
place name as his own because he was nameless, being the
natural son of the Duke of Lucea, who had brought him up.
He was a follower of Mazzini, a carbonaro, “a revolutionist
of the worst kind, a fanatical rebel.” Helena hinted that she
had saved him from the gallows in Austria, where he lived
after being exiled from Rome because of insulting the Pope.

In outline, H.P.B’s story and the Count’s conform well
enough. When visiting Russia, H.P.B. said that she “found”
Metrovitch in Tiflis in 1861 and in Odessa in 1870 where
“my relatives knew him well and he was friends with my
cousins Witte.” 4 She provided Metrovitch with a mistress,
Sophie Cruvelli, and with a wife, Teresina, who had been
her “best friend” until her death in 1865. She even drew a
pen-and-ink sketch of the wife, dressed as Marguerite in
Foust, and dated, “Tiflis, 7 Avril, 1869.” If there really was
a wife, she was never mentioned by the Count or the
Fadeevs, and was apparently unknown to them.

In 1870, according to H.P.B’s confidential letter to Sin-

* Letters H.P.B., pp. 144, 189.

VARIORUM EDITION

nett, Metrovitch had arrived in Odessa to find Auntie
Fadeev worrying about her niece Helena, who, by that time,
had been on her own for twenty-two years. At all events, the
aunt induced Metrovitch to run over to Egypt, find Helena,
and bring her home, very much as Colonel Hahn had asked
“Mr. K.” to find Helena in India! Metrovitch, arriving in
Cairo, had the misfortune to encounter several Roman
Catholics who were still mulling over his affront to the Pope
of seven years earlier, and who now hired Maltese gangsters
to kill him.

Supernatural warning of the danger from her Master
Ilarion induced Helena to take prompt action: “I made
Agardi Metrovitch come direct to me and never leave the
house for ten days.” The usefulness of this incident for
explaining away compromising gossip needs no comment.
After ten days Metrovitch refused to continue hiding be-
hind Helena’s skirts and set out on foot for Alexandria.
Helena was delayed by having to pack and ship her pet
monkeys; when she reached Alexandria, Metrovitch had not
arrived. Retracing her steps, she learned that he had stopped
at a small hotel where the proprietor, a Maltese, had been
seen talking to two monks. Metrovitch had a glass of lem-
onade-yes, lemonade— and went on his way, but in the next
village, Ramleh, he fell down unconscious. In a small hotel
in Ramleh, Helena finally found him sick in bed with a high
fever, and with a monk in his room. After calling the police
to eject the monk, Helena cared for the dying man through
ten days of delirium. When the end came on April 19, 1870,
the Church refused to bury him; even the Freemasons were
afraid to touch him because he had been a carbonaro and a
revolutionist. Aided by an Abyssinian occultist, Helena her-
self buried the dead man, hiring a hotel servant to dig a
grave under a tree on the seashore and sending for Egyptian
fellahs to carry the corpse. According to Count Witte,
Helena’s lover was shipwrecked and drowned. This finale
may well be an adapted version of an actual seaside burial of

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Metrovitch, whose body was probably washed ashore after
the shipwreck. “In the evening we buried his poor body.
Then I took up my monkeys . . . and went back to Odessa.
That’s all.”

Sinnett was delighted by the color and action of this
story. His biography of Madame was bogging down under
long-winded tales of her magical powers, and he was un-
happily conscious that it needed a shot in the arm. Still too
bemused to appreciate the absurdity of H.P.B’s recollec-
tions, he begged for more material about Metrovitch. H.P.B.
took fright. Admitting that she had not told all, she spun
another yam to account for meeting Metrovitch in Con-
stantinople in 1850. It seems that she had stumbled over his
apparently dead body one night returning to Missire’s
Hotel. He had been stabbed in the back by Maltese ruffians
hired by the Jesuits. She had stood guard four hours before
her guide found anyone willing to pick up the singer’s body
for her. A chance Turkish policeman, passing by, offered to
roll the supposed corpse into a ditch, “then showing a de-
cided attraction to my own rings, and bolting only when he
saw my revolver pointing at him. Then I had the man
[Metrovitch] carried to a Greek hotel over the way.”

The first of Helena’s letters had described Metrovitch’s
death in 1870. In the second, supposed to reach back to
1850, she used again her device of an illness that explained
their occupying the same room, and repeated also her ama-
teurish melodrama, hired ruffians, plotting Jesuits, diffi-
culties in getting assistance. The letter continued, tracing
her friendship with Metrovitch through the years to Flor-
ence, where he sang in the Pergola, to Rome and Venice,
back to Tiflis in 1861— and always chaperoned by his wife!

At ibis point in her letter, H.P.B. Abruptly introduced
two new figures, Baron Meyendorf and the illegitimate son,
Youry. The child is officially vouched for by a passport
dated August 23, 1862, “to the wife of Civil Counsellor
Blavatsky, attach^ of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, and their

VARIORUM EDITION

infant ward Youry, to proceed to the provinces of Tauris,
Cherson and Pskoff for the term of one year.” * H.P.B.
claimed to have adopted the child to protect the reputation
of a woman relative. It would have been an indiscreet ges-
ture for a young woman separated from her husband and
recently returned after an unexplained absence of ten years.
(See Appendix B, page 319.)

4. THE MYSTERY OF OZOORGETTY
( 1861-3)

At about the time of Youry’s birth, Helena was prostrated
by “one of those mysterious nervous diseases that baffle
science,” wrote sister Vera. 6 She had left Tiflis sometime in
1861 or 1862 to bury herself in the wilds of Georgia and
Mingrelia, border provinces of the Trans-Caucasus, reached
only by primitive trails. Riding horseback, protected by a
bodyguard from the bandits infesting these semi-tropical
forests, Helena reached Ozoorgetty in the province of Min-
grelia, where she bought herself a house, a puzzling whim
for a foot-loose wanderer. According to Vera she was estab-
lishing an agency for the sale of rare woods. In addition to
its woods, the place offered a unique combination of fa-
cilities: total isolation and the medical services of an army
doctor, for it was a Russian outpost. It was probably through
her army friends that Helena settled upon this unlikely spot
for her accouchement.

H.P.B’s account of the illness, as dictated to her sister
Vera, is as fantastic as one might expect, and omits any
mention of Youry. For four months she lay consumed by
fever, taking only a few sips of water for days at a time, re-
duced to a skeleton. At this point Helena produced an in-
genious theory to serve as a psychic red herring. Long before
Morton Prince and his multiple personalities, Helena was
fumbling with the theory of a double personality. When the

5 Mary K. Neff: Personal Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky, p. 184 .

6 Sinnett: Incidents, p. 115 .

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT
army doctor called her by name, she said that she could
rouse herself to open her eyes and respond normally, but as
soon as she was alone, she relapsed into her “usually half-
dreamy condition and became somebody else.” She insisted
that she was not delirious; when awake, she remembered
all about her second self and what she had been doing, but
the reverse was not true: “When somebody else, I had no
idea of who was H. P. Blavatsky. I was in another far-off
country, a totally different individuality from myself.”

The Ozoorgetty episode ended in a nightmare journey
through forests and down rivers, recalling Dante’s adven-
tures in Purgatory. The Doctor, unable to cure Helena, sent
her home. She was too delicate to endure the jolting of a
horse, and they put her into a large boat with a native crew
who rowed her a four-day journey down the river, attended
by spectral apparitions all the way. Every night the terrified
oarsmen saw a ghostly figure gliding over the waters, beckon-
ing to them, leading them on. When they reached Kutais,
the panic-stricken crew plunged back into the forest, leaving
Helena’s old butler to get her back to Tifhs as best he might.

Helena charged the paternity of the child to Baron Nich-
olas Meyendorf, one of the young bloods who had been
fascinated by her nightly seances. However, her own ac-
count suggests Metrovitch as the probable father. In her
second letter to Sinnett, in the midst of a paragraph about
the singer, and without one word of explanation as to who
Youry was, she suddenly began an incoherent account of
Youry’s death. She had, she wrote, found Metrovitch in
Tiflis in 1861:

Then my relatives knew him [Metrovitch] well, and he was
friends with my cousins Witte. Then, when I took the poor child
to Bologna to see if I could save him, I met him [Metrovitch]
again in Italy and he did all he could for me, more than a
brother. Then the child died; and as it had no papers or docu-
ments and I did not care to give my name in food to the kind
gossips, it was he, Metrovitch, who undertook all the job, who
buried the aristocratic Baron’s [Meyendorf s] child under his,

VARIORUM EDITION

MetrovitcKs name, saying * he did not care ,’ in a small town of
southern Russia in 1867. After this, without notifying my rela-
tives of my having returned to Russia to bring back the un-
fortunate little boy whom I did not succeed to bring back alive
to the governess chosen for him by the Baron, I simply wrote the
child’s father to notify him of this pleasant occurrence for him,
and returned to Italy with the same passport.

The point of this tumbling incoherence was that Sinnett
must not refer to Metrovitch or to the child, not even if he
suppressed their names; “better be hung than mention any
of it”; a hurricane of dirt would be thrown at her . . . the
Baron Meyendorfs and all the Russian aristocracy would
rise against her if the Baron’s name were even mentioned,
and Daniel Home, the Baron’s friend would be the first to
denounce her. Besides which, people would not believe the
story; even her own father had suspected her and almost
refused to forgive her, “though afterward he pitied and
loved that poor crippled child ... I have done too much
toward proving and swearing the child was mine, and have
overdone the thing.” T

Long after the death of all the principals, a surviving
Baroness Meyendorf, sister-in-law of Baron Nicholas told
his side of the story. The Baron had admitted a liaison with
Helena but insisted that Metrovitch was the father of the
baby. The Baron and his brother finally agreed to make
certain payments; photographs of Helena with the child
were preserved at the Meyendorf home in Estonia until its
destruction during the Russian Revolution . 8

Neither Vera nor the aunt ever referred in print to Metro-
vitch, the Baron Meyendorf, or the child, which would seem
to qualify them as family skeletons. Vera summed up her
expurgated account of this period with self-conscious brev-
ity. Helena had always refused to discuss her mysterious
illness in Ozoorgetty with anyone and as soon as she was
able had left the Caucasus and returned to Italy.

7 Letters pp. 144, 151.

8 E. Bechofesr Roberts: Mysterious Madame , p. 51.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

These alibi stories of Helena's about her lovers and her
child were alike in their nightmarish unreality. They were
dreams, daydreams, and as such offer interesting clues and
symptoms to psychiatrists and especially to Freudians. It is
astonishing that Sinnett could have accepted these stories in
good faith, and that they do not appear to disturb Madame’s
present disciples. They make a pitiful picture, but they
help to clarify the emotional conflict that led H.P.B. twenty-
five years later to secure a curiously worded medical memo-
randum, which she inaccurately called a certificate of vir-
ginity. True believers piously accept this certificate for what
H.P.B. said it was; to them it offers satisfactory refutation
of the scandalous charges against their beloved teacher.

5. the 1860's

Helena, Metrovitch, and Youry lived in Italy during most of
the child’s brief span of life. In contrast to her flood of con-
flicting stories about the decade of the 50’s, Helena was reti-
cent about the 6o’s. Her followers take advantage of her
silence to assert that she spent these years in Tibet, ignoring
the impossibility of taking a crippled infant on such a jour-
ney. These were the only years of domesticity that Helena
was ever to know.

Within a few months of the child’s death in 1867, the
action picked up and things began to happen again. Helena
and Metrovitch, after burying the child in southern Russia,
returned to Italy. On November 2 of the same year, she
claimed to have been in the thick of the bloody battle of
Mentana, fighting as a volunteer under Garibaldi. She had a
number of scars that she used to prove this story; shortly
after meeting Olcott at the Eddy farm she showed him a
wound below her heart, a stiletto stab received in this battle.
The wound had reopened a little and she wanted his advice!
She also showed him marks on her left arm, broken in two
places by sabre strokes, and she let him feel the bullets in

VARIORUM EDITION

her leg and right shoulder. She told this Mentana story for
about ten years and then suppressed it, writing to Sinnett
in 1886, “Please do not speak of Mentana, I implore you.”
Another trip to India finished off the decade of the 6o’s,
and on this her fourth attempt, she entered Tibet. She
avoids details.

The next important Theosophical date was 1870 when
the aunt, Madame Fadeev, received a miraculous letter. It is
preserved and venerated as the first in the long series of
Mahatmic writings that constitutes Theosophical scripture.
Madame Fadeev was at home in Odessa; her niece Helena
was on the other side of the world, no one knew where.
They had not heard from her for years and were ready to
believe her dead. On November 11, 1870, an Asiatic mes-
senger appeared in Madame Fadeev’s house, handed her a
letter, and disappeared before her eyes. The missive was
written in French on Chinese rice paper and was addressed:
“A VHonorable, Tres Honorable Dame, Nadyejda An-
dreewna Fadeew, Odessa Translated, it read:

The noble relations of Mme. H. Blavatsky have no cause what-
soever for grief. Their daughter and niece has not left this world
at all. She is living, and desires to make known to those whom
she loves that she is well and quite happy in the distant and un-
known retreat which she has selected for herself. She has been
very ill, but is so no longer; for under the protection of the Lord
Sangyas (Buddha) she has found devoted friends who guard her
physically and spiritually. The ladies of her house should there-
fore remain tranquil. Before eighteen new moons shall have risen,
she will return to her family. 9

This letter of 1870 made its public appearance not earlier
than June 1884. At that time Madame Fadeev wrote to
Colonel Olcott describing its receipt and enclosing the
original. Both Sinnett and Olcott in their memoirs, pub-
lished several years later, ignored this important first com-

9 Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, p. 101. (Here-
after referred to in the notes as Letters M.W. )

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

munication from the Masters, which would be enough in
itself to discredit the letter, one of Helena’s efforts to estab-
lish her claim to early contacts with her hierarchy.

Count Witte’s Memoir furnishes further evidence that
this supernatural letter was an after-thought. The Count
was an undergraduate at the University of Odessa in 1870,
and Helena, far from being “on the other side of the world,”
was right there in Odessa, courageously trying to support
herself and the aging Metrovitch.

General Fadeev had died, leaving his own and his wife’s
estate in ruins. Overconfident of the immediate develop-
ment of the natural resources of the Caucasus, he had in-
vested everything in those fabulous oil and mineral deposits
which were to enrich not his, but later generations. The
General’s household scattered, to make shift as they might.
Two of Helena’s aunts, Madame Witte and Madame
Fadeev, moved to Odessa in order to put the Witte boys
through the University. And in Odessa they found their
niece still living with Metrovitch a hand-to-mouth existence.

Helena had tried giving music lessons to children, but the
little darlings made her nervous, and her picturesque oaths
were not well received by the parents. She next managed to
raise enough capital to plunge through a succession of busi-
nesses that died on her hands, an ink factory, a retail shop,
a factory and store for artificial flowers. Sergei Witte, com-
ing home from the University in the afternoon, found her
calling on his mother. Sometimes he stopped at her shops
to see how she was making out. Funds and credit finally
exhausted, Helena and Metrovitch set sail for Cairo, where
he hoped to sing in Italian opera.

The theosophists have never published a scholarly study
of their founder’s life, but they have produced a five-foot
shelf of apologetics, a few of which are skilfully evasive.
Following their policy of seeking to discredit witnesses who
challenge their legends, they accuse Count Witte of being
too young to remember his cousin, though he knew her

VARIORUM EDITION

from his twelfth to twentieth years, and of being too old to
remember the facts when he wrote his memoirs although
he was only in his early sixties.

The Count’s character and fame, his intimate knowledge
of Helena up to her final departure from Russia in 1871, and
his disinterested attitude make him an authoritative source
of information. He lost all touch with her during the final
period, her Theosophical career, and erroneously assumed
that she founded her Society in England and died in Paris.
But his narrative of the controversial second period of her
life, mentioning her travels in the Americas and to Con-
stantinople, Cairo, and Servia corresponds closely with the
high spots in most of the versions of Helena’s own conflict-
ing stories.

It is, moreover, unreasonable to imagine that this distin-
guished statesman would stoop to slander a woman cousin.
On the contrary, he made no reference to the disagreeable
episode of the illegitimate child. He wrote of Helena in a
good-humored, appreciative tone, quite free from animus.
The intrigues and lax morals of the aristocracy, the frailty
and impulsiveness of youth— it was all an old story. Helena’s
adventures were common gossip among her set all over the
Continent, and the Count’s references to this entertaining
adventuress only repeated stories that were well known and
taken for granted. 10

Summing up his impression of Helena, Count Witte was

10 Count Witte’s comments on the United States bear out the impres-
sion of a fastidious and outspoken man. He said that he had only one de-
cent luncheon and dinner all the time he was here, and they were on board
Pierpont Morgan’s yacht the day he was taken to visit West Pomt. Food
at the old Waldorf seemed to him fabulously expensive, 30 and 40 rubles
per plate (ruble, 50 cents), and exceedingly bad. He was astomshed by
the simplicity of the Presidential menage when he visited Oyster Bay and
said it remmded him of the summer home of a humble burgher. The
Theodore Roosevelts’ luncheon was worse than their house: there was no
tablecloth and they served icewater instead of wine, which was "for a
European almost indigestible.” He was also shocked by the President’s
custom of preceding Mrs. Roosevelt in entering a room. Having thrown
off the yoke of diplomacy, the Count enjoyed the luxury of speaking his
mind.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

cordially appreciative of her energy, versatility, facility in
picking up new skills. Although sceptical of her super-
normal phenomena, he was impressed with “her gift for
hypnotizing her hearers and herself into believing the
wildest inventions of her fantasy.” His personal acquaint-
ance with his cousin ended as she departed for Cairo with
her tarnished lover, “a toothless lion perennially at the feet
of his mistress, an aged lady, stout and slovenly.” Helena
was forty, which seems aged to arrogant twenty.

The S.S. Eumonia, on which the singer and his lady
sailed, was, according to Helena, loaded with gunpowder
and firearms. On June 21, 1871, the cargo exploded. Of
four hundred passengers only seventeen were saved. Helena
had gruesome memories of floating in the water and seeing
limbs, heads, and trunks falling all about her. She failed to
mention Metrovitch, but the Count said that he lost his life
in saving Helena’s. She was put ashore at Alexandria with
nothing but the dripping clothes on her back. She had lost
youth, family, husband, child, lover. She had neither the
training nor temperament for earning a living. It was a
dreary outlook for “an aged lady, stout and slovenly.”

6. A MEDIUM IN CAIRO

(1872-3)

The death of Metrovitch was a bitter blow, but Helena kept
on to Cairo. The popularity of her amateur stances in Tiflis
inspired her to turn this skill to account. To differentiate
herself from shabby back-parlor mediums, she organized a
Societe Spirite, appointed officers, issued a grandiose pros-
pectus, and advertised in the spiritualist press of London
and Paris for mediums to come to Cairo to assist her. Hurry-
ing along the Sekke el Ghamma el Hamar (Street of the
Red Mosque) one day, she bumped into a forlorn-looking
English woman, Emma Cutting, lodging-house keeper.
Miss Cutting wondered who she was and her companion

id all-

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, whom H.P.B. hrevetted Co-Founder
of The Theosophical Society

VARIORUM EDITION

told her. “She is that Russian spiritist who calls the dead
and makes them answer your questions.” She was known,
he said, as Madame Blavatsky and also as Madame Metro-
vitch. Miss Cutting’s only brother had died recently and she
was interested. She knew the Greek whom Madame had
appointed secretary of her Soci6t6 and she asked him to take
her to the next stance. It was a disappointment, no raps, no
spirits; Madame explained that the room must be especially
purified.

The next time that Miss Cutting looked in she found
Madame and the Greek at work lining the walls and ceiling
of a closet off the bedroom with red calico, leaving a space
of about three inches behind the cloth. A few days later she
witnessed a small riot; Madame had disappeared, and the
room was full of people “using most offensive language”
about her, complaining that she had taken their money and
cheated them. They had pulled down the red cloth lining
and found pieces of string hanging from a long glove stuffed
with cotton, used to represent the materialized hand and
arm of a spirit. Madame later explained to Miss Cutting
that she had nothing to do with the dummy arm, which
must have been the work of Madame Sebire, a medium she
had living with her. However, the exposure killed the
Societe, and Madame was soon down to her last franc. Miss
Cutting came to the rescue and not only gave Madame a
room in her house, but made several loans to tide her over.

In later years Madame bitterly attacked spiritualism and
its demoralizing effect on mediums; she tried to justify the
Society on the ground that it was a research group organized
to study and reform spiritualism, but the evidence is against
Madame. Her own letters show that she was associated with
that pathetic group which floats with the tides of the cities
of Asia and the Near East. She called them “amateur me-
diums,” but she had no illusions about them and wrote her
aunt that they were “mostly beggarly tramps when not ad-
venturesses in the rear of M. de Lesseps’ army of engineers

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

and workmen on the canal of Suez”; they stole her money,
drank like fishes, and cheated the patrons with bogus tricks.
After several scenes in which she, as the proprietor, was held
responsible for their frauds, she turned them all out, and
then— she never could resist a touch of melodrama— she was
nearly shot by a madman, her Greek associate, the secretary
of the Soci6t6 Spirite, “who got possessed, I suppose, by
some vile spook.”

The monkeys and Helena and, oddly enough, Madame
Sebire, the medium she had accused of fraud, all turned up
without warning in Odessa that summer of 1872. Helena
remained for less than a year. Although she was always bel-
ligerently loyal to her native land, this was her final effort
to conform to its mores. Away from her family she remem-
bered them with choking emotion; together, they quarreled
bitterly. Dropping the monkeys and Madame Sebire along
the way, Helena moved to Paris in March 1873 to live with
her cousin, Nicholas Hahn.

Evidence of Helena’s defensiveness about these vagabond
years is found in her persistent efforts to furnish credentials
of respectability, a quality taken for granted unless it is
notoriously lacking. Colonel Olcott dug up a testimonial
sounding like a reference for a nursemaid in answer to
charges that H.P.B. had been running wild during her four
months in Paris. Lydia Marquette of New York City, who
had been studying in the Paris hospitals, wrote the Colonel
that she had been with Madame constantly and that she
could certify that Madame’s “behavior was unexceptionable
and such as to entitle her to every respect.” 11 According to
Lydia, Madame was staying not with her cousin, but with
her brother, Leonid, and she also gave a different address
from that used by Madame. Altogether, the testimonial
seems to do Madame’s case more harm than good.

After creating her Mahatmas, H.P.B. sought to weave

11 Henry S. Olcott: Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 27. (Hereafter referred
to in die notes as Olcott: O.D.L. )

VARIORUM EDITION

them into this period. She had intended to settle down in
Paris indefinitely, she said, when suddenly on a night in
June 1873 the Masters ordered her to sail for New York the
very next day, though she barely had enough money to pay
for her passage. She was commissioned to clean up the
abuses of spiritualism.

The fact is, however, as Madame admitted on another
occasion, that she sailed for this Land of Opportunity in
the mood of many another emigrant, hoping to cut away her
past and all its complications, its scandalous gossip, its tragic
memories, hoping to begin life anew. When her disciple,
Sinnett, was working on her memoir she told him that he
could relax the rigid censorship with her arrival in New
York City: “From that time on, let the public know all.”

CHAPTER V

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

( '**7i)

ON her silver wedding day, July 7, 1873, Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky landed at Castle Garden in New York City. She
may have remembered the date; most women do. For
twenty-five years she had taken the ups and downs of a
roller-coaster fife, loved and hated, squandered and gambled
one season, pinched pennies the next, traveled, explored
arcane mysteries; she had savored life greedily for the years
of her blooming. Passing under the shadow of middle age,
she was tensely determined to get a fresh start before it was
too late, to improvise a role that would carry her to the final
curtain.

Despite her resolution to let the public know all, H.P.B.
was always reticent about the winter of 1873-4 and the
humiliations of extreme poverty. For a proud woman
with her arrogant background, she accepted hardship in an
admirably democratic spirit. Later she was chary of talking
about it, tom between pride in obstacles overcome and fear
of detracting from the messianic tradition that soon became
an obsession.

In spite of the anonymity of landing in New York from
the steerage, Madame Blavatsky established contact with

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

the New York press within a few days of her arrival. She
probably sent in the original tip herself, and Anna Ballard,
a pioneer woman reporter from the New York Sun, was
assigned by her city editor to write a story about women in
Russia. Somehow, Miss Ballard encountered H.P.B., and
the Sun solemnly reported that a colony of one hundred and
fifty girls from the Russian aristocracy, including the Czar’s
own daughters, had been studying medicine in Zurich when
the Czar issued a ukase forbidding Russian women to study
medicine and limiting them to the practice of midwifery.
The Russian Consul in Switzerland immediately broke up
the Zurich group. Some returned to “their stern mother-
land,” others drifted to Paris and Germany; “a small but
precious leaven turned to America . . . interesting women
and an honor to any country.” The story and the number
mentioned are fantastic and would be incredible even today.
It was a Blavatskyan fantasy, its purpose appearing in the
final sentence: “These accomplished women, polyglots,
artists, travellers, scientists, nearly moneyless are able to do
much and want something to do.” 1 Score one for Madame
Blavatsky; she had crashed the columns of the New York
Sun and put a want ad in the reading matter free of charge.

Twenty years later, the aging Miss Ballard found her way
to India and settled down at the world headquarters of
Theosophy in Adyar. H.P.B. was dead, but Colonel Olcott
was still collecting references and he asked Miss Ballard to
write him a letter about that long-ago assignment. She had
forgotten the subject of the interview and, being in India,
could not look up the files. But she vividly remembered
Madame’s saying exultantly, “I have been in Tibet.” The
fact is that H.P.B. did not begin to talk about Tibet until
several years later. In 1873 the emphasis was all on Egypt,
spending three nights in the Pyramids, caravan trips across
the desert. H.P.B. went so far as to appropriate India’s
classic myth, the rope trick, and give an eye-witness account

1 New York Sun, July 28, 1873.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

of seeing it performed, not in India but in Egypt at the
feast of Ramadan. Elderly Miss Ballard, who had forgotten
even the subject of her interview, was unlikely to have re-
membered a chance remark about Tibet. But a guest want-
ing to make herself agreeable may, in comparatively good
faith, succumb to suggestion. Miss Ballard's happening to
recall the remark that her host most wanted illustrates the
fragility of truth and the snares that beset the unwary as
they venture upon the uncharted seas of occultism.

Immigrants were pouring into the United States at the
rate of half a million a year in the 1870’s, creating as a by-
product numerous agencies offering them assistance. On
arrival, H.P.B. was directed to a Home for Working
Women at 222 Madison Street on the lower east side, one
of New York’s earliest tenement houses. The Home was
organized as a co-operative, and the sixty-five occupants,
chiefly unskilled labor, held weekly meetings attended by
the landlord, Mr. Rinaldo, and by the philanthropic
founder. Miss Sue Smith of Virginia, who had made up a
$1,200 deficit during the preceding year.

Mr. Rinaldo introduced H.P.B. to the owners of a shirt-
and-collar factory, to whom she submitted some humorous
advertising sketches drawn on playing cards, incorporating
the pips into her cartoons. She also made exotic designs for
leather work and novelties. But this woman whose genius as
a salesman of invisible Mahatmas made her famous had no
gift for selling material things. It was Odessa over again.
The weeks went by, and H.P.B., penniless, lingered on
among these humble working women. She told Miss Smith
that she had sent home for money and expected to hear
from the Russian Consul. Arguments about H.P.B. divided
the Home into two parties: those backing the Russian
Countess against those convinced that she was an adven-
turess.

In addition to the charwomen, the Home had its small
white-collar aristocracy. A young school teacher, Elizabeth

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

G. J. Holt, has left a simple, honest account of her famous
neighbor . 2 She remembered Madame at forty-two as an un-
usual and powerful-looking woman, probably taller than she
appeared because she was so heavy, with broad face and
shoulders and lightish brown hair “crinkled like a negro’s.”
Around her neck she wore a freakish tobacco pouch, the
mounted head of an animal in which she fumbled for to-
bacco to roll her perpetual cigarettes. In view of the time
and place, H.P.B’s cigarettes serve as a tribute to the toler-
ance of Miss Sue Smith of Virginia.

In the evening Miss Holt and her friend Miss Parker and
their little set gathered around H.P.B. and listened to her
stories. She leaned toward the macabre, death and grave-
yards, premature burials, morbid marvels; she was on inti-
mate terms with the spirits, mischievous and often wicked
little creatures, diaki she called them. Romantic Elizabeth
liked best to hear about her adventures with kings and
queens, and how wearing trousers and a smock, she had deco-
rated the private apartments of the Empress Eugenie in the
Tuileries, climbing up and down ladders with palette and
brushes, covering the boudoir walls with jungle scenes, orang-
outangs, and boa constrictors. On Sunday evenings H.P.B.
held seances, repeating the marvels that had held the aris-
tocracy of Pskov and Tiflis spellbound. To Elizabeth’s
chagrin, she was not allowed to attend these affairs; Miss
Parker thought she was too young and that her mother
would not approve. Even Miss Parker found the meetings
so spooky that afterward she used to stay all night with
Elizabeth rather than climb two dark flights of stairs to her
own room. Miss Holt’s general impression of H.P.B. was
favorable and mystified. She remembered that when the
younger residents wanted advice they were likely to tum to
Madame, who transfixed them with her strange, beautiful
eyes and spread their past lives before them with terrifying
accuracy. They liked her unconventionality, her picaresque

2 Theosophist, December 1931.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

humor, her sympathy with the underdog; they responded
to her experience and her courage. But, said Elizabeth
primly, she would never have regarded Madame as an ethi-
cal teacher. She was too excitable; when things went wrong,
she lost her temper, made scenes, and used dreadful words.

The naivete of Miss Holt's recollections is offset by the
cynicism of other impressions of Madame. A second news-
paper woman, Mrs. Hannah Shepard Wolff of the New
York Star, encountered H.P.B. in the Home dormitory. In
spite of the drab surroundings and Madame's appearance,
fat and careless, lounging on her bed in untidy neglige, Mrs.
Wolff recognized the challenge of the woman. She did not
surrender to her charm, describing her as a “clever and re-
morseless adventuress,” and attributing her eccentricity to
the use of hashish and opium, which she urged upon Mrs.
Wolff in vain.

At her father's death H.P.B. received $500 of her modest
inheritance. She ran through the money in a quick splurge
at a smart hotel and was soon back in Bohemia, living in a
co-operative flat with three journalists, two men and an-
other woman. She continued to devise new types of phe-
nomena: ordinary photographs left in a certain wooden box
in the parlor overnight were found tinted in watercolors by
the spirits. One night her housemates, sceptical of her pow-
ers, hid behind the portieres; sure enough, after the house
was quiet they saw Madame tiptoe out of her room in her
nightdress, carrying a lamp and colors and brushes, and they
watched while she helped the spirits to color the pictures.
Mrs. Wolff collected a number of stories about H.P.B., all
involving petty frauds. These received wide publicity later
on, for Madame with her arrogant and unconventional ways
made enemies as well as friends.®

Madame showed her courage that winter of 1873-4, even
taking a job in a sweatshop making artificial flowers. She was

3 Two Worlds, October-December 1881; also, The Better Way, 1880;
Carrier Dove, 1880; New York Star and Religio-Philosophical Journal,
passim.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

struggling to get a fingerhold at a higher level to avoid being
swept down into the vortex of the Melting Pot’s anonymous
millions. She moved frequently, accepting hospitality as it
was offered. After a brief stay in Brooklyn with some Rus-
sians she had met on shipboard, she was taken back to Man-
hattan by a French Canadian widow, Madame Magnon, her
former neighbor at the Home, who now had a little flat on
Henry street. One morning after waiting a reasonable time
for H.P.B. to come to breakfast, Madame Magnon went to
her room and found her gagged and bound, her nightgown
sewn to the mattress so securely that her hostess had to cut
her loose with scissors. The prank was the work, H.P.B. ex-
plained, of the diaki, evil spirits who had fastened her down
while she was asleep. Madame Magnon was thrilled. It was
one way of paying for breakfast.

Nothing is more difficult to imitate than thrift if you are
not the thrifty type. Helena tried to hold on to the final in-
stalment of her father’s money, but it burned a hole in her
pocket and she soon found a marvellous opportunity to pro-
vide for the rest of her life. In June 1874 she met Clemen-
tine Jerebko and her husband, lately arrived from the Cau-
casus. Jerebko had been the captain of a yacht belonging to
Prince Vorontzov, whom Helena had known in Odessa; the
wife, Clementine, came from Helena’s old home, Tiflis.
The Jerebkos had bought six acres at Northport, half way
down the north shore of Long Island, and Clementine drew
an idyllic picture of life on the farm. They had paid only
$1,000 for the place and they were sure of an income of at
least $2,000 a year. This time the Siren succumbed to siren
voices. On June 22, 1874, Helena paid the Jerebkos $1,000
and signed a three year co-partnership agreement to work
the farm on equal shares, dividing equally all profits and
expenses. On July 1, she gave up her struggle with the big
city and took possession of her share of the new home in the
country.

Of course it could not work. Helena’s memories of life

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

on Russian landed estates with scores of serfs at her call
were poor preparation for a crude truck farm where she
must wait on herself and help with the chores. By the end
of the first month, both sides realized that it was a terrible
mistake. Clementine prayed to be released from the con-
tract and promised to return the cash. They agreed to sell
the land at auction, and together moved back to furnished
rooms in the city. Three days later the Jerebkos disappeared.
Helena pursued them, persuaded an excellent law firm to
represent her and took the case into court. 4 So ended Helena
Blavatsky’s first year in the Land of Opportunity. Her father
was dead. She had squandered her patrimony. Her last fi-
nancial resource was gone. She was one year older, turned
forty-three. She had no time to spare.

2. AMERICAN DEBUT

(1874-5)

Ten days after the first of Olcott’s articles on the Eddy
seances appeared in New York, on October 14, 1874, Mad-
ame Blavatsky arrived at the remote Vermont farm. She in-
troduced herself as a spiritualist who had devoted her life
for more than fifteen years to defending the cult and its
mediums from unjust charges of fraud; she had left an easy
life “amongst a civilized society” to become a wanderer on
tire face of the earth “for the sake of the blessed truths of
spiritualism.” *

Closer scrutiny of H.P.B’s visit to Chittenden, Vermont,
reveals clues that fit into a quite different pattern. Counting
on the co-operation of these unknown mediums, the Eddys,
she laid elaborate plans to exploit the seances as a setting
for her American debut. Her scarlet Garibaldi shirt, out of
keeping with her usual style of dress, insured her being no-
ticed. The pantomime of where-to-light-my-cigarette broke
the ice for conversation with the Colonel. Her own remarks,

4 Theosophist, April 1923.

5 Spiritual Scientist, December 3, 1874.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

her fulsome flattery about his Graphic articles, her artless
fear of meeting him, her pretense that she did not recognize
him, proved that it was Olcott rather than the Eddys whom
she had come to see. The Colonel did not have a chance.
In no time he was "Maloney” and she was “Jack,” and she
was showing him her battle scars.

Expert at winning men’s confidence, H.P.B. encouraged
Olcott to talk and listened attentively; he was a new type,
different from the men of her globe-trotting past. A year
younger than H.P.B., Olcott had grown up on his father’s
New Jersey farm. At twenty-six, he was associate agricultural
editor of the New York Tribune, which sent him abroad to
survey European farming methods. In i860 he married
Mary Epplee Morgan, daughter of the rector of Trinity par-
ish, New Rochelle; they had three sons. After Civil War
service in Burnsides’s North Carolina campaign, he was ap-
pointed commissioner with brevet of Colonel and earned
commendation for uncovering corruption in arsenals and
navy yards. Since the war, he had been admitted to the bar
and had opened a law office in New York. He maintained
his newspaper contacts with an occasional front-page story,
such as the hanging of John Brown, but specialized on two
hobbies, farming and spiritualism. He had recently pub-
lished a genealogy that traced his family back to Thomas
Olcott, one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut, in
1636*

Olcott was an old-fashioned provincial Yankee, honest
and capable within limitations; he had initiative, energy,
idealism, sentiment, and a gift for convincing people of his
own integrity. He could dash off appreciations of the Eddys’
tawdry tricks without straining himself because he had the
will-to-believe. This made him extremely useful to a clever
person like Madame. She argued that Olcott’s experience as
an investigator of graft fitted him to pass on supernatural
phenomena. Mystical fraud involves subtler values than

* Heniy Steel Olcott: Descendants of Thomas Olcott.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

mere embezzlement. Many distinguished men have stubbed
their toes on this fact. H.P.B. proved a poor judge of people,
but her choice of Olcott as her partner in founding The-
osophy was an inspired streak of luck.

For more than a year Madame had marked time, trying
to forget the feeling of insecurity and suspense, like a stone
in the pit of her stomach. She was not wasting a minute; in-
defatigably she followed up every lead. By chance a glimpse
of the variety of her efforts during a single week has sifted
down out of the cobwebbed obscurity of the past. Repercus-
sions of the letters written in that week lead far afield. But
they give a sense of the desperate intensity of her mood.

3. THREE LETTERS

(1874)

On H.P.B’s return from Vermont to New York she took a
furnished room at 23 Irving Place; across the street from Ol-
cott’s Lotos Club, it would be convenient. The next day
she called upon Andrew Jackson Davis, who, beginning as
a cobbler's apprentice in Poughkeepsie, had acquired an in-
ternational reputation as a Sage of Spiritualism. She wanted
to quiz him about his friend, the Honorable A. N. Aksa-
kov, Imperial Privy Councillor and ardent propagandist for
spiritualism. Proscription of the cult by the Russian State
Church prevented the use of the Russian press, but Davis
told her that Aksakov had recently opened an office in Leip-
zig and founded a magazine, Psychische Studien ; he had
also financed the translation of Davis’s books into German.
As she listened, Helena’s mind raced ahead . . . American
correspondent for the new magazine . . . special articles
. . . translate Olcott's new book. For they had already
found a publisher for the Eddy articles.

That very day, October 28, 1874, Helena wrote a long
letter to Saint Petersburg. Her sentiment for any Russian

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

gave her letters to Aksakov poignance and a kind of sincer-
ity, but did not curb her imagination. She described the
growth of spiritualism in America with reckless hyperbole,
eighteen million converts, the American press greedy for ar-
ticles. She was on the staff of the Graphic and had just re-
turned from two weeks reporting the Eddy stances.
Couldn’t she send him translations of her Graphic articles
regularly, illustrated in pen and ink? Would he be inter-
ested in her translation of Dickens’s unfinished novel Ed-
win Drood, with the sequel written under spirit control?

Before Aksakov could receive her letter, Helena followed
it with a second that is one of the most revealing documents
in all the hundreds of thousands of words of fact and fiction
she left behind her. She had again called on Andrew Jack-
son Davis, who had just received a letter from Aksakov. As
Davis did not understand French, he asked Madame to
translate it for him. What was her horror to find Monsieur
telling Davis that he had heard about Madame Blavatsky
from her family, who said that she was a powerful medium,
but that unfortunately her spirit communications showed
the effects of her mode of life, which had not been entirely
proper (“qui n’a pas ete des plus severes ” ) .

With a gulp, she abridged and smoothed over her transla-
tion. Then she went straight home and wrote to Aksakov:

Whoever it was told you about me, they told you the truth, in
essence if not in detail. God only knows how I have suffered for
my past. It is clearly my fate to gain no absolution upon earth.
This past, like the brand of the curse on Cain has pursued me ad
my life and pursues me even here in America where I came to be
far from it and from the people who knew me in my youth. You
are the innocent cause of my being obliged to escape somewhere
yet farther away— where I do not know. I do not accuse you;
God is my witness that while I am writing these lines, I have
nothing against you in my heart beyond the deep sorrow which
I long have known for the irrevocable past . 7

7 Vsevolod.S. Solovyoff: A Modem Priestess of Isis, pp. 228—30. (Here-
after referred to in the notes as Solovyoff: M.P.I. )

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

It was exasperating to have to confess the sins of her
youth to this man whom she was so eager to impress. Before
finishing the letter, she managed to turn the tables and for-
give him for the pain he had caused her. She continued with
a panegyric about spiritualism, to which she had consecrated
every moment of her life for the past ten years. She had
been claiming fifteen years, but that overlapped the Youry
episode, so she cut it to ten. She told Aksakov that she had
been a materialist until she was thirty, believing neither in
God nor in a future life, hating society because of its hypoc-
risy. “Ergo, I ran amuck against society and the established
proprieties. Result: three lines in your letter which have
awakened all the past within me and torn open all the old
wounds.” If she did experience a change of heart at thirty,
it may have been related to her tragic experience with her
baby.

Madame was fumbling with inhibitions deeply sup-
pressed, probably connected with her secrecy about her par-
ents, some psychic wound in early life so deep that at seven-
teen she “ran amuck.” She closed the letter with humble
appeals, first for Aksakov’s sympathy, and second not to re-
veal her shame to Mr. Davis; she had only one hope left in
the world, to gain “the respect of the spiritualists of America
who despise nothing so much as 'free love.’ Can it give you
any satisfaction to morally destroy forever a woman who has
already been thus destroyed by circumstances?”

Madame offered no excuses, made no claim of slander
and persecution, her stock alibis in later years. But time like
a river washes away the past. With reckless confidence in
this process of erosion, H.P.B. only teixyears later was spin-
ning fantastic yams about persecutions by the Jesuits and
adoption of an infant ward. As she had once convinced the
other children of the reality of the curling green tidal wave,
she convinced these older playmates of the reality of Mal-
tese gangsters and a glass of lemonade. The authenticity of
die Aksakov correspondence has not been questioned; in it

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

H.P.B. freely admitted the charges against her, “the bitter
fruits of my youth which I dedicated to Satan, his pomps,
vanities, enfin.” Yet Theosophists accept Madame’s claim
of later years that her life was consecrated to mystic devo-
tion and the service of the Masters and that all scandalous
rumors were the persecution of diaki.

A generous letter from M. Aksakov assured Madame of
his discretion. She was in Hartford helping the Colonel read
proof on his People from the Other World, but she dashed
off a tumultuous reply, bubbling with relief and determined
to impress the gentleman anyhow. She began in great hu-
mility ... his infinite goodness, ... he had the right
like any honest man to despise her for her sad reputation in
the past; her only hope was in the grave, where she would
be freed from her “sinful and impure envelope . . . you
are so condescending and magnanimous to write to a sinner
like myself.” In the very next paragraph she wandered off
into a fantasy account of his letter’s having magically pur-
sued her from city to city without benefit of postoffices.
Long and flighty, the letter tumbled from Russian into
French and back again, piling up superlatives, improbabili-
ties, impossibilities. Olcott, devotee of spiritualism for
twenty years, was transformed into “a furious sceptic” whom
she had converted overnight. The editor of the greatest pub-
lishing house in America wanted her to write a book and
guaranteed a sale of 100,000 copies. Gradually as H.P.B.
realized that her letters to M. Aksakov produced no results,
the correspondence withered away.

The day after H.P.B. wrote her original letter to Aksakov
witnessed the opening of another curious correspondence.

The Colonel’s articles about the Eddy seances had to wait
while cuts were made of the artist’s drawings; his glowing
account of the Countess de Blavatsky’s arrival did not ap-
pear in the Graphic until November 27, a month later than
the Sun’s, which used no pictures. On October 29, the Sun,
misspelling her name, reported with sceptical reserve on

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Madame Blowtskey’s apparitions, including a Michael Gue-
gidse, a Georgian from the Caucasus, a former servant of
her aunt, Madame Witte, in Tiflis. He had been killed in
a street accident in 1869, and Madame identified him by a
string of amber beads on his wrist. The Sun reported that
Madame Blowtskey asked the spirit to play and sing some
Georgian tunes and loudly applauded the performance.

A series of coincidences ensued. Intercity distribution of
newspapers was rather uncommon in the 1870's. Yet a Geor-
gian peasant living in Philadelphia, Michael Betanelly,
claimed to have read this article in the New York Sun on
the day it was printed and, on that same day, October 29,
made haste to write a long letter inquiring about Madame
and her Georgian spirit. This simple peasant, Betanelly, was
so familiar with the New York press that he even knew that
the Graphic correspondent in Chittenden was Colonel Ol-
cott, and he sent his letter of inquiry, not to the Sun, but to
Olcott, whose account would not appear for another month.
Betanelly’s letter read:

Philadelphia, 430 Walnut st., Oct. 29, 1874.
Henry S. Olcott, Chittenden, Vt., Eddy’s Homestead.

Dear Sir: Though I have not the pleasure of your personal ac-
quaintance, I take the liberty of addressing to you a few words,
knowing your name from the Daily Graphic correspondence on
Eddy’s manifestations, which 1 read with greatest interest.

I learn from today’s Sun that at Eddy’s in the presence of
Mme. Blowtskey, Russian lady, a spirit of Michalko Guegidse
(very familiar name to me) has materialized in Georgian dress,
has spoken Georgian language, danced Lezguinka and sung
Georgian National Air.

Being myself a native of Georgia, Caucasus, 1 read these news
with greatest astonishment and surprise, and being not a believer
in spiritualism, 1 do not know what to think of these manifesta-
tions.

I address today a letter to Mrs. Blowtskey, asking some ques-
tions about materialized Georgian, and if she left Eddy’s, please
forward it to her if you know her address.

1 also earnestly request your corroboration of this astonishing

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

fact , materialized Georgian , if he really came out from the cabi-
net in Georgian dress and in your presence. If that occurred in
fact, and if anybody will regard it, as usually trickery and hum-
bug, then I will state you this : There are in the United States
no other Georgians but three, of whom 1 am the one and came
first to this country three years ago. Two others whom I know
came over last year. I know they are not in Vermont now and
never been there before ; and I know they do not speak English
at all. Beside us three, no other man speaks Georgian language
in this country, and when I say this, I mean it to be true fact.
Hoping you will answer this letter, I remain,

yours respectfully,

M. C. BetaneUy.

Simple, trusting Olcott was delighted and wrote post
haste, wanting to meet the other two Georgians. Betanelly
replied:

. . . unfortunately I kept no correspondence lately with my
Georgian friends, but I think they are somewhere in New York
or out west, but I know they had no personal acquaintance of
persons in Georgia that materialized dt Eddy's. I knew Michalko
when alive in Kutais ... he was late serf . . . and employed
servant in Col. A. F. Witte's family.

I also knew personally late General Faddeyeff, a tall and old
gentleman in Tiflis who died several years ago. He occupied one
of the highest rank in Tiflis under Government and possessed
the Cross of St. Ann, and other merits of honor for his military
and civil services . 8

These letters raise several questions. With a population
of one and a half million Georgians, it pulled the long arm
of coincidence that one of the only three Georgians in the
United States should promptly identify H.P.B's humble
serf, Michalko. It pulled it again when Betanelly happened
to refer to Madame’s grandfather though he did not know
Madame, and when he also happened to mention the cross
of Saint Anne, which Madame wanted to establish as an im-
portant Russian decoration. Betanelly also contradicted
himself. First he asserted that the other two Georgians were

8 Henry Steel Olcott: People from the Other World, pp. 305-6.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

not in Vermont and then he claimed not to know where
they were. The delay in acknowledging acquaintance with
Michalko until the second letter is curious. The later devel-
opment that Michalko was alive at this time gives a touch of
opera-bouffe.

The first of Betanelly’s letters began with the phrase with
which Madame on the previous day had opened her letter
to Aksakov, an apology for “taking the liberty” of address-
ing a stranger. The style of the letters was naively inconsis-
tent. Some sentences scarcely made sense, yet unusual words
and idioms abounded: corroboration, astonishment, unfor-
tunately. The writer’s familiarity with the jargon of spirit-
ualism was another anachronism, especially as he professed
himself not a believer: cabinet, manifestations, materiali-
zation.

In spite of its crudity, the letter conveyed just what Mad-
ame wanted said: 1. it recapitulated the Georgian phenom-
ena; 2. the writer was not a spiritualist, and hence was dis-
interested; 3. he did not know Madame, and 4. by chance
he happened to mention her grandfather and the cross of
St. Anne.

It can scarcely be doubted that Madame had known Beta-
nelly previously, and that the appearance of the spirit of a
Georgian serf at Chittenden with subsequent corroboration
by a real, live Georgian was carefully planned. None of these
considerations occurred to the Colonel. The letters seemed
to him perfect corroboration. While making a great show
of his scientific investigations, the Colonel was pitifully gul-
lible. He weighed and tape-measured and took notes and
left loop holes large enough for mediums to crawl through
bodily. The spiritualist press showed itself far more cautious
and critical than he.

The third of Madame’s three letters in three days had no
more relation to the other two than they to each other. On
October 30, she plunged into print with an attack upon a
prominent New York physician, graduate of Yale and lec-

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

turer at the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. George
M. Beard. The Doctor had recently visited Chittenden; he
earned a galvanic electric battery by night boat to Albany,
across country to Rutland, and seven miles by springless
wagon to the Eddy brothers' farmhouse. He had devised a
test of their good faith by means of this fascinating new
gadget. When the medium took hold of the two handles,
the Doctor would turn on sufficient current to prevent his
letting go. With the medium’s hands glued to the battery
during the stance, the Doctor conceded that he would be
impressed— if anything happened. He had his trouble for
nothing. The Eddys haughtily refused to touch the handles
or to submit to any test.

An account of his trip by Dr. Beard in the Graphic was
factual and discerning. The light in the stance room, when
there was any, was so dim that, with perfect eyesight, he was
unable to recognize a face at three feet. It was impossible
to have identified the numerous spirits mentioned or to
have seen the details of the costumes so elaborately de-
scribed. He expressed mild surprise at Olcott’s credulity
and told of wanting to discuss with him, while at the farm,
certain suspicions of the Eddys. He had closed the door of
the room, whereupon the Colonel had told him that it was
useless to shut the door as the spirits would hear and report
to the Eddys whatever he said. The Doctor courteously
made the point that he was convinced of the Colonel’s es-
sential honesty, but he was equally convinced that the
Eddys were stupendous frauds “as unscrupulous as they
were ignorant .” 8

Madame shot her third letter into the air, a surprisingly
shrill and ill-tempered attack in which she accused the Doc-
tor of gross and vulgar insults “worthy of a drunken London
cockney.” With a show of great emotion because it was
something too sacred to expose to the vulgar gaze, she again
described the spirits’ presenting her with the medal-buckle

8 New York Graphic, November 9, 1874.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

unearthed from her father’s grave in Stavropol. D. D. Home,
among others, entered the subsequent controversy, remind-
ing Helena that she had been using this same trick as far
back as 1858 in Paris. Since then he had married into the
Russian aristocracy and he now bluntly informed her that
it was not customary in Russia to bury an officer’s decora-
tions with his body. For confirmation, he published part
of a letter from his friend Baron Meyendorf who, he said,
had known Madame in the past “to his cost.” 10

When the smoke cleared away, the Eddys had been dis-
credited even by the spiritualist press, and Madame seemed
to be responsible for the ghoulish conceit of rifling her fa-
ther’s grave. She continued her quarrelsome attacks on Dr.
Beard, Dr. F. R. Marvin, and a little group of professional
men who were trying to debunk the fraudulent excesses of
spiritualism. Her methods were crude, but they got her
name into print.

Using the excuse of personally delivering another letter
attacking Dr. Beard, H.P.B. called at the Graphic office and
contrived to be interviewed. Helena was never beautiful,
but she had something that is quite as much fun for a clever
woman: she was born attractive to men and she knew it,
prized it, and was jealous of other women to her last breath.
Even after becoming grossly fat, she was vain enough to
drape a scarf around her neck or hold her hand to her face
in her photographs so as to hide her double chin.

By the time she was thirty, Helena had gone astonishingly
slack. She carried over a seventeenth-century lack of per-
sonal fastidiousness into the nineteenth century. She was
oblivious to grease spots down the front of her rusty wrap-
pers; her fingernails were rimmed in black; her tapering fin-
gers grimy and stained with nicotine. And yet, far from
being really indifferent, she fixed herself up elaborately for
public appearances. The trouble was that she had no taste,
no eye for color or line, and knew only how to pile on orna-

10 Boston Herald, March 5, 1876.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

ments. Even the bemused Olcott cringed as he felt the
laughter of people passing on the street: “A stout and re-
markable looking woman, wearing a perky hat with plumes,
a grande toilette satin dress with much trimming, a long
heavy gold chain about her neck attached to a blue enam-
elled watch, with a monogram in cheap diamonds, and on
her lovely hands a dozen or fifteen rings, large and small.
... I have gone to the theatre with her when I expected
the house to rise at us.” 11

She was arrayed in her purplest linen the day she went to
the Graphic office, wearing her father’s buckle, and display-
ing the crested letters from Baron Meyendorf and Prince
Wittgenstein that had dazzled Olcott in Vermont. She was
turned over to a staff comedian who wrote with tongue in
cheek of her aristocratic connections and her Munchausen
adventures. But when he wrote of the lady herself, Helena’s
charm triumphed over the gewgaws and crashing colors; the
reporter took his tongue out of his cheek and paid her left-
handed tribute: “a remarkably good-natured and sprightly
woman. She is handsome with a full voluptuous figure, large
eyes, well formed nose and rich sensuous mouth and chin.”
He even said that she was dressed with “remarkable ele-
gance” and that her clothing was redolent of subtle per-
fumes from the Far East. The interview began with kidding
informality:

“Do you fellows smoke here?” she asked abruptly,

“I don’t. ...”

“Oh you mean fellow,”

“But the others do and you can smoke if you wish.”

“That’s right. All we Russian ladies like our cigarettes. Why
do you know that poor Queen Victoria is nearly frightened into
fits because her Russian daughter-in-law smokes?”

Here Madame Blavatsky took out a book of cigarette papers
and a package of Turkish tobacco and deftly rolled an elegant
little cigarette. The writer gallantly supplied her with a light, and
she began to smoke, blowing the blue vapor through her beauti-

« Olcott: O.D.L., 1,459.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ful nostrils with that dreamy relish which the smoker knows so
well . 12

The reporter punctuated Madame’s remarks with “puff-
puffs-at-her-cigarette.” He used her fantastic stories about
making a fortune in ostrich feathers and losing it at the
gaming tables, and he made a climax of her insistence that
the Czar was a spiritualist and had freed the serfs in 1866
because of a message from an apparition of his late father!
The reporter used the newspaper man’s deadly weapon, a
serious presentation of Madame talking through her hat.
The interview distressed Olcott. He knew that it was not
helpful publicity. Madame was less critical. She did not en-
joy the disrespect, but she was complacent as she measured
the agate inches of print.

12 New York Graphic, November 13, 1874.

CHAPTER VI

TRIAL AND ERROR
0 * 71 )

TOWARD the end of 1874, Madame turned her attention
to Philadelphia, where she had several prospects, none of
them too promising. Two mediums, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes,
holding seances in Philadelphia had become headliners
through the sponsorship of the wealthy reformer, Robert
Dale Owen; recently there had been disagreeable rumors
about them, even in the spiritualist press. Reckless Madame
Blavatsky, ignorant alike of American moods and of pub-
licity methods, undertook to rehabilitate the Holmeses, in-
cidentally cultivating Mr. Owen. By December first she had
abandoned New York and moved in on Philadelphia. The
Holmeses reached the apex of polite publicity a fortnight
later when “the aristocratic Atlantic Monthly opened its
doors to Mr. Owen” for an article on spiritualism with laud-
atory references to them. But the Atlantic Monthly for Jan-
uary 1875 had gone to press many weeks earlier. A cruel
fate arranged that Owen should publicly repudiate the
Holmeses on the very day that the Atlantic appeared on
the newsstands. Faced with a last moment revelation of the
Holmes’ elaborate frauds, Owen had tried to stop distribu-
tion of the magazine by telegraph, but he was too late. Hu-

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

miliated, he hastened to announce through the press that
he had been grossly deceived for several years, and he apolo-
gized for having unwittingly helped these charlatans to im-
pose upon the American public.

Instead of discreetly retreating before this development,
H.P.B. redoubled her efforts. Colonel Olcott was invited by
Mrs. Holmes to conduct one of his “scientific investiga-
tions,” and he arrived in Philadelphia on January 4. When
he joined H.P.B. in her boarding house at 1111 Girard Ave-
nue, he was taken aback to discover that it was the home of
his correspondent Betanelly. With a wave of her beautiful
hands and a gaze of her azure eyes, Madame explained this
away, and the two men settled down beside her in triangu-
lar harmony.

It was true in 1875 as it is today that to secure publicity
you must have a steady flow of startling news or prestige and
a committee of big names. By stressing the “scientific” na-
ture of their investigation, Madame actually secured the use
of Robert Dale Owen’s name for her committee until, a
few weeks later, upon his complete mental breakdown, the
poor old man was moved into a sanitarium. After the col-
lapse of Owen, Madame’s star member was General Francis
James Lippitt. Graduated from Brown University in 1830,
the year following Madame’s birth, the General had had a
colorful career, practicing law and serving in both the army
and the navy. He was the last survivor of the little delega-
tion that had represented this country at the funeral of
Lafayette. In later years he became a lecturer on interna-
tional law at the Naval War College at Newport. He was
one of an exclusive group making an informal investigation
of the Holmeses, which included the Vice-President of the
United States, Henry Wilson; A. J. Drexel, the banker; and
George W. Childs, the publisher. The last two, Madame
noted, had recently purchased the Philadelphia Ledger.

Madame cultivated General Lippitt with the assurance
of a woman who knows the quantity of sugar that an aging

TRIAL AND ERROR

(63) male heart can assimilate. She wrote almost daily notes
to “My Sweet General”; John King, the popular spirit con-
trol, showered attentions upon him. John and his daughter
Katie King dominated both Madame’s and the Holmeses’
stances. The Kings stand out in that strange galaxy of spir-
its which have had their brief vogue in the stance rooms of
the world. John is supposed to have begun as The King, a
generic title. A later legend identified him as the spirit of
Sir Henry Morgan, the pirate. Madame said she had known
him intimately for fourteen years, that not a day passed but
he was with her. Daughter Katie was to fascinate several
generations of mediums. It was Katie who, working through
the pretty young medium Florence Cook, threw dust in the
eyes of the eminent scientists Alfred Russel Wallace and
Sir William Crookes. A generation later Katie King floated
back into the limelight as the control of the celebrated me-
dium, Eusapia Palladino.

Katie had been the Holmeses’ favorite control. For months
she had carried on an innocent flirtation with Mr. Owen
until the old man was loading her with jewelry, which the
immaterial Kate had no difficulty in carrying out of the
stance room, and which finally led to the Holmes’ undoing.
A fortnight after Owen’s repudiation of the Holmeses, the
Philadelphia Inquirer devoted half a dozen full newspaper
pages to Katie’s biography. 1 It was a sensational exposure of
a young woman who, month after month, had been smug-
gled into the stance room to impersonate Katie in flesh and
blood. The reputable spiritualist weeklies, long uneasy, has-
tened to repudiate the Holmeses and to criticize “those,”
meaning H.P.B. and Olcott, who by defending them against
the weight of evidence, invited suspicion of all mediums
and of spiritualism itself.

Obstinately Madame bombarded the press with screeds,
verbose and violent, on behalf of the Holmeses. When she
could no longer get anything published, she fell back on

1 Philadelphia Inquirer, January 9 and 11, 1875.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

General Lippitt, whose training in international law was no
defense against her glamour. Although a month had passed
since the Inquirer’s splashing expose, the General obedi-
ently signed his name to Olcott’s long-winded whitewash of
the Holmeses. He thereby secured its publication in the
Religio-Philosophical Journal. The editor of this conserva-
tive spiritualist weekly felt obliged to recognize the Lippitt
name, but in the same issue he commented bitterly on the
humiliation of watching “a small number professing spirit-
ualism hover round the dead carcass of the Katie King hum-
bug.” 2 The report was tiresome reading. John King had
whispered a message in Georgian to Betanelly. John King
had told the Colonel: “I’ll take care of your boy Morgan,”
and the Colonel had been overcome that John should know
his son’s name. John King asked the Colonel for his signet
ring, which he reluctantly handed over and that night, back
at 1111 Girard Avenue, Olcott was relieved and amazed to
find the ring under his pillow.

Secretly, Madame was as sick of the Holmeses as the spir-
itualist press; she admitted as much to Lippitt: “Fraud is
their nature . . . they must have been conceived in some
moment of cheating or humbug as Mr. Sterne in his Voyage
Sentimentale ... I have never believed them. I believe
my eyes, my senses and John [King].” Years later Mrs.
Holmes confessed the whole elaborate machinery of decep-
tion to a committee that included Richard Brodhead West-
brook, D.D., LL.D., one of the early Councillors of the
Theosophical Society. Mrs. Holmes said that Madame Bla-
vatsky had proposed a partnership in a touring spiritualistic
show, taking the Colonel along as business manager; Mad-
ame had boasted that she could make the Colonel do any-
thing she wanted, she had him “so psychologized that he
did not know his head from his heels .” 8 Madame’s scrap-
books confirmed the charge of collusion with the Holmeses.

2 Religio-PhUosophical Journal, February 20, 1875.

8 Ibid., September 16, 1893.

TRIAL AND ERROR

Over a clipping, “Mrs. Holmes Caught Cheating,” H.P.B.
wrote:

She swore to me in Philadelphia that if I only saved her that
once, she would never resort to cheating and trickery again. I
saved her, but upon receiving her solemn oath. And now she
went out of greed for money to produce her bogus manifesta-
tions again. . . . Let her receive her fate, the vile, fraudulent
liar.

H.P.B. 4

This episode was typical of many sordid lost causes that
Madame championed throughout her career to the despair
of her disciples.

Now that the Holmes’ defense had collapsed, Madame
failed to return to her rooms near the Lotos Club. Some-
thing detained her in Philadelphia, but she kept in touch
with the Colonel by letter. She had a new device for hold-
ing his interest: he was to be the big chief of a mystifying
Miracle Club. The select membership would be forbidden
to mention so much as the place of meeting; mediums and
sorcerers would perform in superlative secrecy. It was in
reality just another seance circle with fancy trimmings and
a hush-hush atmosphere. The secrecy had practical advan-
tages. It appealed to certain types of people; if things went
wrong and the miracles failed to jell, only those in an elite
inner circle would know, and they could be kept under con-
trol. If anyone talked, he was at once discredited; he had
broken his vow. It was a clever idea, but Olcott made little
headway. He lacked the magic touch. He needed H.P.B’s
presence, her gift of repartee, her weird stories, the green
sea waves transmuted into a supernatural cosmos, her gift
for making the unreal more vivid and more important than
the real.

Madame also found time for frequent letters to General
Lippitt. Perhaps to offset the Holmes fiasco, John King vol-
unteered to make a portrait of himself for the General. In

4 Mary K. Neff: Personal Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky, p. 218.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

india ink on white satin he drew a stereotyped male face
with regular features, framed in a black beard and white
turban and turned the picture over to H.P.B. for her to
finish. She rested John’s arm on a balustrade, gave him a
furry-looking laurel wreath, and asked the General not to
mention her helping with the picture because she did not
want to be considered a medium, “which title is synony-
mous to fraud in our days.” This was a new note of disillu-
sionment and gave warning of an important change of
program.

While Madame composed her letter about the King pic-
ture, Betanelly was also writing to the General; both letters
were dated March 22, 1875 and were written on Betanelly’s
letterhead, which described him as an importer of Russian
insect exterminators, goat skins, tobacco. Madame had
passed the hat among her men friends on behalf of her
young protege, and Betanelly was thanking the General for
“helping our business.” He went on to report the latest ad-
ventures of H.P.B. and John King. That very afternoon he
had forgotten to deliver a letter to Madame “and when we
were sitting at the dinner table” John had rapped and made
a fuss, abusing Betanelly for his poor memory. “Since we
came to this house . . .” wrote Betanelly, and divulged fur-
ther wonders. The letter sounded unmistakably domestic.
It was a new kind of triangle, with John King in and out at
all hours, having his own desk piled with papers, and mak-
ing a terrible scene if anyone touched them.

A fortnight later, on April 3, Madame wrote the General
that she had that day finished John’s picture and shipped it
by express; the letter is of unusual interest because it was
written on her wedding day. On April 3, Madame Blavatsky
and Michael Betanelly were married by a Unitarian min-
ister, the Reverend William H. Furness. Of all Helena
Hahn’s madcap pranks, this marriage to a peasant with no
money and no prospects probably heads the list. She had
now, if not earlier, become a bigamist. Paradoxically, she

TRIAL AND ERROR

reversed the disparity-of-age theme by marrying a man al-
most as much her junior as she had been younger than Gen-
eral Blavatsky.

General Lippitt demonstrated his docility by giving the
press H.P.B’s explanation of the marriage over his signature:
when Betanelly proposed to her, she saw that he was im-
pelled by dark denizens on the other side of the line to com-
mit suicide if she refused. In the first flush of her youth and
beauty two men had committed suicide because of hopeless
love for her and, fearing lest a third be added to the list, she
had accepted Betanelly on condition that she was never to
see him again after the ceremony. When he became an im-
portunate lover, she repulsed him and he obtained a di-
vorce. 5 D. D. Home, looking on scornfully, quoted Beta-
nelly’s attorney, Joshua Pusey, and charged that a horrible
tale of diabolism was connected with the marriage.

Because the wedding had been delayed for several weeks
after they moved into the Sansom Street house and it was
apparent that they had been living together, Madame tried
to erase the date from the record. Her apologists argue that
she must have been married before March 22, because of
Betanelly 's letter. (See Appendix C, page 320.) But the rec-
ords in the Philadelphia City Hall show the date as April 3.
It was a matter-of-fact wedding day. Madame did not let it
interfere with finishing and shipping the white satin por-
trait. Perhaps the bride and groom stopped at the express
office on their way to the Pine Street parsonage.

The question as to the status of Madame’s menage be-
fore the marriage is complicated by the fact that Colonel
Olcott was a guest in their home at the time, though not
present at the ceremony. “I saw them when they returned
from the clergyman’s residence after the celebration of the
rite,” wrote the Colonel. 6 When he remonstrated with
H.P.B. over the folly of her marrying a man so much

5 Religio-Philosophical Journal, April 1888.

•Olcott: O.D.L., I, p. 57.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

younger and so “inexpressibly her inferior in mental capac-
ity,” she silenced him with the suicide story. In time, she
improvised a more complicated defense; her fate and Beta-
nelly’s were “temporarily linked together by an inexorable
Karma, and the union was to her in the nature of a punish-
ment for her awful pride and combativeness which impeded
her spiritual evolution, while no lasting harm would result
to the young man.”

It was a thin sugar-coating for a very bitter pill. But the
Colonel swallowed it.

2. TOMORROW THERE WILL BE NOTHING TO EAT

( 1875 )

The first six months of 1875 were the turning point of Mad-
ame Blavatsky’s career. Iconoclasts had pricked the beauti-
ful, iridescent bubble of spiritualism. The cult on which
she had built her plans for a comeback was in a temporary
state of collapse. Now she must begin all over again. What-
ever our reservations about her methods, her tempers, her
treatment of her associates, she deserves recognition for her
courage and ingenuity. She transformed the stalemate of
spiritualism into a steppingstone to the front row of the
cultist’s Hall of Fame. She had expected to electrify the
American public with the array of fancy-dress spirits that
greeted her arrival at the Eddy farm. The display of such
power must surely establish her in a secure position. Cor-
roboration of her Georgian spirit, Michalko, by the real, live
Georgian, Betanelly, must convince the most skeptical. Yet
somehow, it had not even been a nine-day wonder. Madame
had overestimated the pulling power of a writeup in the
Graphic. She received a few fan-mail letters, and that was
all. She was out her expenses for the trip to Chittenden.

Again, it was Monsieur Aksakov to whom H.P.B. dis-
closed the bitter truth, garnished with fiction. Writing to
him early in 1875 she drew a gloomy picture of the demor-

TRIAL AND ERROR

alization of the spiritualists and admitted the failure of the
Miracle Club. Olcott’s book about the Eddy seances had
not sold 1,000 copies in five months, and he was “sitting on
heaps of his People from the Other World like Marius on
the ruins of Carthage, and thinking bitter things.” During
the past year, she had earned $6,000 by her writings but had
spent it all in trying to salvage spiritualism, and was now
penniless. The statement of her earnings was, of course, fan-
tastic. During her five years in this country, she sold two
stories to the New York Sun, for each of which she may
have received $10. She wrote a few travel articles for the Rus-
sian press; her earnings from the spiritualist press were neg-
ligible. Her inheritance from her father probably amounted
to less than $3,000. For the rest, Olcott paid the bills. She
could not admit all of this to Aksakov, but she made one
frank statement:

Here you see is my trouble, tomorrow there will be ndthing to
eat. Something quite out of the way must be invented. It is
doubtful if Olcott’s Miracle Club will help ... I am ready to
sell my soul for spiritualism but nobody will buy it, and I am
living from hand to mouth and working for ten or fifteen dollars
when necessity comes. 7

Madame’s letters were slanted to create three impres-
sions: of her burning ardor for spiritualism and her impor-
tance as a leader of the movement; of her great literary suc-
cess in the United States, and of her desperate need for
literary work. Reconciling the last two themes was a prob-
lem, but Madame was skilful. In public, she continued to
defend spiritualism for another six months, but private
letters showed her secretly at work transplanting her efforts
from the ordinary garden cult to a hothouse hybrid already
germinating under the glow of her inspiration.

The next move was novel, daring, spectacular. H.P.B. con-
ceived the Theosophical Society, though it may have been
mere opportunism. She did not propose to surrender the

r Solo vy off: M.P.I., p. 253.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Colonel as the price of her dalliance with Betanelly. The
“something quite out of the way” materialized on March 9,
1875, a date that, though unobserved by Theosophists, is
really their basic anniversary. On this day Tuitit Bey, Grand
.'.of the Brotherhood of Luxor, wrote his first letter to
Colonel Olcott. The Egyptian setting and names were to
be permanently replaced by Indian scenery and personnel,
but it was the Egyptian Brotherhood who succeeded John
King and created the role of first member of Madame’s su-
pernatural hierarchy. This letter to Olcott was first in the
long series of Mahatma letters that constitute an important
part of Theosophical scriptures.

Assembled in their Observatory in ancient Egypt shortly
after midnight, the Brotherhood of Luxor dictated their
message. H.P.B. delayed its delivery for a few hours because
she wanted permission to transcribe it to a magic parchment
on which the letters appeared while you read them and dis-
appeared as soon as you had finished. The Chief told her not
to bother, but to hurry the letter along. And so, instead of a
magic parchment, it was written on thick green stationery in
gold ink and enclosed in a black glazed envelope fastened
with a large red notary’s seal. It was addressed in French,
“aux bons soins de Mme. Blavatsky, F.G.S., .\R+”: 8

From the Brotherhood of Luxor, Section the Vth to Henry S.

Olcott.

Brother Neophyte, we greet Thee.

He who seeks us finds us. TRY. Rest thy mind— banish all foul
doubt. We keep watch over our faithful soldiers. Sister Helen is
a valiant, trustworthy servant. Open thy spirit to conviction, have
faith and she will lead thee to the Golden Gate of truth. She
neither fears sword nor fire but her soul is sensitive to dishonor
and she hath reason to mistrust the future. Our good brother
“John” hath verily acted rashly but he meant well. Son of the
world, if thou dost hear them both, TRY . . . Thou hast many
good mediums around thee, don’t give up thy club. TRY. Brother
John hath brought three of our Masters to look at thee after the

8 Theosophist, April 1922.

Alexander Nikolayevich Aksakov , Imperial Privy Councillor

TRIAL AND ERROR

seance. Thy noble exertions on behalf of our cause now give us
the right of letting thee know who they were :

Serapis Bey (EUora Section)

Polydorus Isurenus (Section of Solomon)
Robert More (Section of Zoroaster)

Sister Helen will explain thee the meaning of the Star and
colors. Activity and Silence as to the present.

By order of the Grand .'. Turrrr Bey

Observatory of Luxor,

Tuesday morning.

Day of Mars.

For a first letter breaking centuries of silence between
gods and men it is a disappointing combination of Spence-
rian elegance, archaic English, cabalistic symbols, and ama-
teurishness. It might be Aunt Prudence exhorting her
nephew not to be discouraged because the Miracle Club’s
first medium had been a failure. John King was in disgrace,
but H.P.B. was considering his reinstatement. In a covering
letter, H.P.B. offered Olcott the privilege of becoming a
Neophyte, but warned him that if he accepted there could
be no backing out; he would have to undergo severe trials
and temptations: “If you . . . agree to the word Neophyte
you are cooked my boy and there is no return from it . . .
Patience, faith, no questioning, thorough obedience and Si-
lence.” Her final sentence is noteworthy. It was a statement
in the very first letter of Theosophy’s basic principle of
blind obedience to the occultist leader. This autocratic prin-
ciple, guarded by the secrecy of the E. S. (Esoteric Section)
has been responsible for Theosophy’s worst abuses, but it
has also furnished the vitality and authority to keep the So-
ciety alive through the most sordid scandals.

In devising this supernatural hierarchy with herself as
sole intermediary for all mankind, Madame showed daring
and shrewdness. She was building herself a political ma-
chine with almost unlimited leverage. The hierarchy gave
her all the advantages of a business partnership with none

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

of its drawbacks. When she wanted to gain time before giv-
ing an answer, she must consult her partners. They took the
blame for unpopular and unreasonable decisions and for
mistakes that were never her fault, but were by their
order. No matter what went wrong, she could always shift
the blame. She did not even have to pay the price of split-
ting profits. She was the sole authority, responsible to no
one, an autocrat in her esoteric realm. With credulous peo-
ple like Olcott, the Brotherhood enhanced her authority.
Had it been Madame alone who wanted five hundred dol-
lars to keep the Spiritual Scientist alive, her neophytes
could have looked sympathetic and said, Sorry, we just do
not have it. But when an Unknown God endorsed her sign-
ing a note for five hundred dollars and ordered Olcott to
get the money, Olcott did as he was told until his credit
was exhausted.

At this time, H.P.B. invented a number of devices that
became standard practise under Theosophy. She built up
her own authority by means of extravagant praise put in the
mouth of these all-wise Masters. “Sister Helen is a valiant,
trustworthy servant,” wrote Tuitit Bey, and they never
ceased to reiterate her power, her unselfishness, her high
rank as an occultist, the severity of her tests, the persecution
she had endured. The Brothers’ style became ever more
involved, and they borrowed liberally. “The Dweller,”
dread figure from Bulwer-Lytton’s Z anoni stalked across
their pages; rituals of the Rosicrucians, Kabbalists, Free-
masons and other secret orders gave them words and sym-
bols: TRY, thee, thou, dost, hath, and other archaisms;
use of initials, dashes, asterisks, fancy writing papers, and
exotic inks.

The title Neophyte proved irresistible, and in spite of
H.P.B’s warning, Olcott accepted it and was received into
fellowship. The august Brother Serapis wrote apologizing
for the delay in the delivery of the first letter: it had been
held up by the feminine weakness of our sister Helena who

TRIAL AND ERROR

was so curious that she had made an excuse to open and
read it. “We forgive her for she suffers intensely.” This was
a double header. It proved that H.P.B. could not have writ-
ten the letter or why would she be so curious to read it? It
also elevated Olcott to the dizzy eminence of association
with the Brothers in condoning the Sister’s faults. Serapis
blandly continued: our Sister was mailing Olcott an obliga-
tion for five hundred dollars; would he kindly find the
money! Our Sister stood on the brink of a supreme crisis;
once more she must face the dreaded one whom she had
thought she would behold no more. . . . The Dweller was
watching her closely; all would be lost if her courage failed.
She must either conquer this supreme test, or die, herself.
“Pray for our Sister, she deserves it.” The Brothers leaned
heavily on appeals to the chivalry of a strong man for a weak
and helpless woman, well aware that Olcott's weakness made
him the more anxious to appear strong.

All that springtime honeymoon Madame in her humble
West Philadelphia home defended spiritualism, promoted
the Miracle Club, played along with fizzling air castles and
worked like a beaver on her grandiose new project, the
Egyptian Brotherhood of Luxor, with which she hoped to
displace spiritualism.

Her first overt step was to get rid of that eminent spirit,
John King. He had held a privileged position, having known
her in daily intimacy for fourteen years and having saved
her life three times: at the battle of Mentana, in a ship-
wreck, and the last time near Spezzia when her steamer was
blown to atoms. She carried on a near-flirtation with King,
reporting his amorous rages and putting herself in coquet-
tishly compromising positions. She was his Elbe Uglie, and
she knew that he loved her. One night she refused to do
something he wanted “because I was sick and did not think
it right.” In his temper he threw at her a bottle of caustic
soda that she had locked away in a casket, burning her brow
and cheek. Her eyebrow had turned jet black in the mom-

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ing, but he only laughed and called her a fine Spanish
wench. She reported this erotic byplay to her men friends;
perhaps it was the pitiful gesture of a woman whose charms
had faded, or she may have found it a provocative device.
She had also made very practical use of John King in sup-
porting whatever task she had on hand, such as cultivating
and flattering Gerry Brown, the editor of a spiritualist
weekly in Boston.

Yet now John King must go! He was really a vicious
spirit. In June she wrote warning General Lippitt against
him; he was ruthless, cruel, spread malicious lies, made mis-
chief between husband and wife, stole everything in the
house, even money, forged people’s handwriting, was a
cruel practical joker, frequently playing dangerous tricks.
H.P.B’s letter bore an endorsement in red pencil by John
King himself, inserted by supernatural means after the en-
velope was sealed. John King’s postscripts were another his-
toric First. Red- and blue-penciled notes and comments be-
came a favorite device of the Mahatmas and a source of
frauds that seriously menaced the Society after Madame’s
death. John King’s glib chatter was the granddaddy of all
the Mahatmic wisdom. On H.P.B’s arrival in Philadelphia
in December 1874, John King began writing innocuous
postscripts to Katie King’s letters: “I will try to do better
tomorrow. J. K.” By June he had acquired a swaggering self-
confidence and cheekily endorsed H.P.B.’s letter complain-
ing about him to General Lippitt:

Now what's the use of abusing a poor innocent spirit that way?
Tell Ettie Uglie General, and write Gerry Brown a love letter,
for I love the chap and my heart is opened to him. My business,
isn’t it? 1 say Frankie, isn’t she a brick, my lass? A regular foreign
pop-gun. That’s why I love her. Your benevolent

John King.

Sounds childish? Not to General Lippitt, authority on
international law; not when surcharged with the magic of
the woman to whom Romain Rolland, Maurice Maeter-

TRIAL AND ERROR

linck, and Count Keyserling have paid tribute, whom Wil-
liam Butler Yeats called a female Dr. Johnson, impressive
to all men and women who themselves had any richness of
nature.

Having set John King rocking on his pedestal, H.P.B.
proceeded to undermine spiritualism. The original justifica-
tion for creating Theosophy centered round H.P.B’s dis-
gust with mediums and the spirits that controlled them,
“ever lying, cheating mediums, miserable instruments of
the undeveloped spirits of the lower sphere, the ancient
Hades.” Not only were most seance messages fraudulent
according to H.P.B., but instead of coming from beloved
spirits of the deceased they emanated from “shells” or “ele-
mentals,” depraved spirits, vampires, condemned by sensu-
ality and vicious habits to haunt the earth. Such spirits cor-
rupted the mediums, leading them into fraud and vicious
practices. It is not surprising that the spiritualists were in-
furiated not only by H.P.B's attack but by her smug an-
nouncement that it was her mission to cleanse the cult of
its errors and vicious practices.

After H.P.B. reached India and evolved her Tibetan Ma-
hatmas, it became an obsession with her to prove that she
had been their agent since girlhood. Her scrapbooks served
this purpose admirably, and she left a score of them, a jum-
ble of press clippings, sketches, pious and impious senti-
ments. They lent themselves to the insertion of paragraphs
and references to the Masters, written in around early clip-
pings. If these comments were assumed to be of the same
date as the clippings, H.P.B. would have an easy means of
authenticating all her afterthoughts. Theosophists accept
and revere these scrapbooks; they are moved by the eternal
note of persecution and by H.P.B’s identification of herself
as a martyred Messiah. A favorite paragraph, supposed to
have been written during this spring of 1875, read:

Ordered to begin telling the public the truth about the phe-
nomena and their mediums. And now my martyrdom will begin.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

I shall have all the spiritualists against me, in addition to the

Christians and the Sceptics. Thy will, oh M. be done!

H.P.B. 9

The M. stands for the Mahatma Morya, who made his first
authentic appearance in H.P.B’s writings after she reached
India five or six years later. The paragraph is supposed to
explain and justify her somersault from belief in spiritual-
ism to an aggressive antagonism. She was obeying the orders
of her Masters. (See Appendix D, page 321.)

During the winter and spring of 1875, H.P.B. took to her
bed for two illnesses. The timing of Madame’s frequent
falls, sprains, and mysterious seizures suggests that she used
them to get around awkward situations. She told conflicting
stories about the first sickness. A bruise on her knee from
falling on a flagstone before she left New York had become
infected. But early in February, she confided to General
Lippitt that she was sick in bed, having nearly broken her
leg by falling under a heavy bed that she was trying to move.
Non-domestic H.P.B. moving beds suggests that early Feb-
ruary was the date when she and Betanelly left downtown
Philadelphia to set up housekeeping in West Philadelphia.
Not being ready to tell Olcott about the new manage, she
invented the fall on the sidewalk as a substitute.

The real purpose of the illness was to provide refuge for
a woman in the throes of creation. Her mind was awhirl,
leaping millions of years into past and future, rearranging
the planets, inventing a new supernatural hierarchy for her
own immediate use. She wanted solitude, and she made an
alleged injury to her leg an excuse to go to bed, to be alone
with her grandiose dreams. It probably was also a device to
escape from Betanelly. Very soon after her April wedding
day, H.P.B. realized her folly and saw Betanelly for the
peasant he really was. By the middle of May she had de-
cided that she had paralysis; she went back to bed and sent
Betanelly off on a business trip because it irritated her to
8 Olcott: O.D.L., 1,25.

TRIAL AND ERROR

have him around. She called in a variety of medical quacks,
a clairvoyant, a negro masseur, an electromagnetist, and fi-
nally Dr. Seth Pancoast, surgeon and eminent Kabbalist,
who said that the leg would have to be amputated. Where-
upon H.P.B. cured it by magic: cold-water poultices and a
dog, a white pup, laid across the leg at night cured it in
forty-eight hours.

A description of the next phase of her illness, written by
Betanelly to General Lippitt, suggests that it was an hyster-
ical attack, as she lay in a trance for nearly a week. Poor
Betanelly thought she was dead, her pulse and heart seem-
ing to stop for hours together. "People say her spirit travels
at such a time, but I don’t know nothing of it and simply
thought several times all was finished . . . Why Dr. say
three times she was dead.” Friday she was better and sat
up writing letters, but when she failed to hear from Gerry
Brown in Boston, “she got mad and felt worse.” As always,
Betanelly gave the General the latest news about John
King. He had been doing strange things, “had materialized
his head and kissed her, but, as she does not like being
kissed, when she got better she abused him, and they always
have fights together, as you remember, for she hates when
he kisses her on the lips.” John was also mixed up in the re-
curring financial emergencies and was forever demanding
money. Sometimes H.P.B. gave it to him; when she refused,
John stole it. Betanelly commented ruefully on the disap-
pearance of several sums. Gifts of money from John King
and H P.B. to Gerry Brown’s Spiritual Scientist at this
same time were doubtless related to Betanelly’s losses. This
was another historic letter brushed by angel’s wings, for
John King endorsed it, in blue pencil this time, “TRUE,
J. K.”

A few weeks more, and H.P.B. knew that she could stand
Betanelly no longer. Olcott offered the best means of es-
cape, but a shaky one. The trouble with Olcott was, as she
wrote to Aksakov, that he was a married man with a family

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

whom he refused to abandon: “He is far from rich and has
nothing to live on but his literary labors, and he has to keep
a wife and a whole lot of children.” In addition, the Beta-
nelly incident had not been good for his morale. H.P.B. set
about Olcott’s re-education, telling him that she was leav-
ing Betanelly because he had gone back on his platonic
agreement and become an importunate lover.

Serapis of the Egyptian Brotherhood hastened to Mad-
ame’s assistance, writing Olcott as man to man, in warm-
hearted sympathy for their mutual friend. Calling Betanelly
a weak and silly wretch, he said that H.P.B. had deliberately
tied herself to a man she hated, believing that she could
make him give generously to the support of herself and her
Sacred Cause for which she stood ready to sacrifice her very
heart’s blood. But, “her cup of bitterness is full. Be friendly
and merciful to her, O Brother.” She had discovered that
Betanelly was virtually bankrupt. He was also under the
malevolent influence of The Dweller and was secretly plan-
ning to sail for Russia, leaving her unprovided for and
alone. Unless Olcott came to the rescue, H.P.B. was
doomed. Serapis himself was prevented from helping her
by the laws of his Lodge.

The simple good faith of Betanelly was evident in his let-
ter to General Lippitt. His bewildered concern over his
wife’s baffling illness, his naive acceptance of John King’s
loverlike attentions, and his credulity about the stolen
money all discredited the charge that he was planning to
desert Madame.

Knowing better than to surrender to Madame’s magic,
the Colonel struggled spasmodically against it, and yet—
and yet— he could not quite turn his back on all this mys-
tery, promising admittance to a new world— and the fasci-
nation of Madame herself! Deferring to his indecision, Sera-
pis offered Olcott an alternative to taking full responsibility
for Madame. If he preferred, he might finance Betanelly!
John King had paved the way by securing from the chiefs

TRIAL AND ERROR

of the Russian government orders that promised to roll up
profits of millions of dollars in the near future. But Beta-
nelly “has no money and his brains are weak.” Wouldn’t
the Colonel try to find him a partner? Serapis’s next pro-
posal was impudent in its effrontery. Mrs. Olcott’s nephew
had recently come into some money; the Colonel was to
get it away from him. The boy was not to be trusted with
money, and it would be safer in the control of the Colonel,
who would handle it wisely “for the sake of the Cause, of
yourself who need it for your boys and her, our sister.” Sera-
pis coolly signed this letter, “The holy blessing be with
you, S.” 10

If Betanelly had served as an effective lever for raising
money, the marriage might have lasted a little longer. But
no more money was forthcoming, and she had no further
use for him. On July 10, 1875, H.P.B. joined the Colonel
m Boston. She never saw Betanelly again.

10 Letters MW , II, 24

CHAPTER VII

CREATING A CULT

( 187)— 7)

THE Brotherhood of Luxor did not have to wait long for
their first project. If Sister Helena was to correct the abuses
of spiritualism she must have means of reaching the Ameri-
can public. Yet she found herself at the outset unable to get
her communications published in either the daily papers or
the two leading spiritualist weeklies because of her contro-
versial style and abusive personal attacks. A third spiritual-
ist weekly had recently been started in Boston, and the
Brotherhood of Luxor promoted an alliance with its editor,
Gerry Brown, as their first major objective

The Spiritual Scientist lacked capital, advertising, and
Teaders, but H.P.B. undertook to secure all three. In addi-
tion to raising money from her men friends, H.P.B. had a
windfall, a decision in her favor on her Long Island farm
suit against the Jerebkos, and she spent this money in pay-
ing bills for the Scientist. For a short time during that
spring of 1875 in Philadelphia, the struggling weekly be-
came virtually a private publicity sheet, printing Madame’s
five- and six-thousand word articles in full. But as soon as
her scanty funds ran out, Gerry Brown had no more room
for her articles. After pleading, flattering, cajoling, promis-

CREATING A CULT

ing in vain, Madame lost her temper, wrote insultingly to
Gerry, and ceased to hear from him at all. She could not
even be sure that he read her letters. Her helpless rage at
his wall of silence had helped to put her to bed in June; as
Betanelly phrased it, when no letters came from Boston
“she got mad and felt worse.”

To meet this impasse H.P.B. devised an elaborate strata-
gem. She would reach Brown through an intermediary
whom he dared not ignore, General Lippitt. But the Gen-
eral was no Olcott to be ordered about; she could not even
tell him the facts. Instead, she concocted a grotesque situa-
tion and tried with wooden humor to bring it to life. Hav-
ing recently issued warnings against John King, she fol-
lowed up on June 12, 1875, with a childishly querulous
letter of complaint about him. John had burst into her sick
room the other night, she wrote the General, boisterously
interrupting her conversation with two friends:

“I say, Ellie.”

“Well, what are you up to again, you villain?”

“I wrote a letter, my lass, a love letter—”

“For God’s sake to whom?”

“You did not receive a letter today from Gerry Brown, Ellie,
did you?”

“No, I did not. What about Mr. Brown?”

“Well, he won’t write to you no more. He is mad with you.”

“What did you tell him, John, you mischievous devil, I want
to know.”

“Why, I didn’t tell him much, I only gave him a friendly hint
or two, told him about you being such a sweet-tempered she-cat,
explained how you swear at me in different languages and as-
sured him that you abused him fearfully to everyone who comes
to visit you. Furthermore, I told him you looked like a fancy she-
dumpling, sitting up in your bed, as solemn as a Cathedral, and
as cross as a butcher’s bull dog. He is disgusted with you, and I
am going to shut you out from his Scientist altogether. . . .” 1

This rigmarole is not as foolish as it sounds: it had a prac-
tical purpose. H.P.B. explained to the General that she was

1 Theosophist, January 24, 1924.

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

very much alarmed, that while John might have been fool-
ing, he was also quite capable of having forged an abusive
letter from her to Brown to stir up trouble. Would the
General help her out by reading this letter to Brown and
letting her know whether he had received such a forgery, so
that she could explain and make amends? It is a prepos-
terous story, creaking in every joint, but it was not when
Madame’s vivid personality was behind it. The proof is that
the General did read the letter to Brown and that corre-
spondence was resumed.

Confident of her power to talk anyone into anything,
Madame was eager to see Brown face to face. The expense
of starting a weekly of her own was prohibitive for the pres-
ent. Brown had somehow gotten over that hurdle, and his
paper while anemic was still viable. Establishing intimate
relations with Brown was a must. When Olcott told her
that he was going to Boston in July to “investigate” the
seances of Mary Baker Thayer for the New York Sun , she
was delighted and terminated her liaison with Betanelly to
coincide with the trip to Boston.

The Brotherhood of Luxor came to Sister Helena’s as-
sistance in full force. Serapis assured the Colonel that his
entire future depended on his securing the co-operation of
our dear young brother, Gerry Brown. The Colonel hung
back. Still ruffled over Betanelly, he needed a breather be-
fore taking on another callow youth. But Serapis kept on
pushing. Brother Henry (Olcott) must devote all his spare
time to dear young Brother Gerry, on whom everything de-
pended; he must try to see him alone in order to win his
confidence . 2

Soon the Brothers were plugging a second theme. Olcott
must remain in Boston: his interests were inseparable from
H.P.B. and Gerry Brown. When the Alliance failed to show
progress, the Brotherhood put on pressure. Olcott must
make the youth “open his heart”; in Brown’s life history

2 Letters M.W., II, 25, 37.

CREATING A CULT

there were secret pages that it was his duty to track down;
unctuously, Serapis told the Colonel that he alone had the
magnetism to gain Gerry’s confidence. Suddenly Serapis
changed his tone. Brother Henry must put the screws on
the young man. The Brotherhood “who read the youth’s
secret thoughts” had been merciful— so far— and had with-
held what they knew about him, but . . . This came dan-
gerously close to blackmail. It was part of Madame’s mor-
bid power that she could make such crooked ways appear
tolerable to Colonel Olcott, late confidential investigator
for the United States Government.

Madame and the Brotherhood gave this proposed alli-
ance their all. Everything was at stake— the Colonel’s fu-
ture, Madame’s life, the success of the Holy Cause, the wel-
fare of mankind! Nothing happened. Brown needed money.
Madame did not have it and could not get it. Taking it in
her stride, H.P.B. explained away this wrong guess by the
Brothers and dismissed Gerry Brown with an epitaph in
her scrapbook. She had spent over one thousand dollars to
pay his debts and support his paper, but he had refused to
reciprocate. “The man might have become a Power but
preferred to remain an Ass. De gustihus non disputandum

est.”

There were other irons in the Boston fires. An inveterate
lion-hunter, H.P.B. pushed General Lippitt and her Boston
friends for introductions. She had been cultivating several
eligible Bostonians: Epes Sargent, for instance, cousin of
the portrait painter, descendant of Governor Winthrop,
poet, dramatist, and lately retired as editor of the Boston
Transcript. Everyone recognized Sargent’s dapper figure
as, swinging his polished black cane, he roved up and down
Beacon Hill, an elegant, cheerful little man, embodiment
of the sacred Boston traditions. As far back as March 9, the
same day that Tuitit Bey wrote his first letter to Olcott,
Madame had written to General Lippitt about Epes Sar-
gent. She had just read his new book, Proofs Palpable, and

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

it was the best account of spiritualism that she had seen in
America; in fact, she wrote, “I am in love with him,” and
the General must tell him that he had “perfectly psycholo-
gized a true bom Cossack and made her fall in love with
him.” Whether the General ever delivered the message or
not, Madame had no luck with Mr. Sargent.

There were also such lesser celebrities as the Reverend
J. H. Wiggin, suave and courtly, who wrote appreciations
of H.P.B., comparing her to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
and who would shortly resign his Unitarian pulpit to be-
come ghost-writer number one on the staff of Mary Baker
Eddy. A native New Englander, Mrs. Eddy found hos-
pitable soil for her new cult in the city of Boston, but not
so the flamboyant alien, Blavatsky. She proved irresistible
to an amazing variety of people, from major-generals to
mystics. But Brahman Boston? No.

Olcott ’s investigation of Mrs. Thayer’s seances, which had
begun early in July 1875, went on and on for five weeks.
The luxury and sophisticated background of Mrs. Charles
Houghton’s home, where he and Madame were enter-
tained, were grateful after the months with Betanelly.
H.P.B. enjoyed driving into Boston behind prancing horses
for the evening seances and then back to the suburbs
through the starlit night. But she dared not relax, and
plunged through the days taut as a fiddle string.

Convinced that Olcott could not be coerced into remain-
ing in Boston, Serapis changed his theme to “Do Not Leave
Her in Boston.” If Olcott wanted to make further progress
in occultism, if he aspired to initiation into the Mysteries,
he must not desert Sister Helena, but must live with her.
Success would surely crown his efforts if he aided “the poor
broken-hearted woman.” In the meantime, certain press-
ing debts were due on August 3. He must try to find the
money; surely it should be easy to secure a loan on the
security of that second judgment she was winning in the
Long Island farm case, “poor, poor Sister.”

CREATING A CULT

While the Colonel struggled, Serapis adopted an even
more pious tone, invoking God’s blessing in every letter and
offering man-to-man sympathy for Brother Henry’s hours
of black despondency: "Think of me, mine Brother and I
will be with you.” Serapis pressed a relentless attack upon
the vulnerable heel of a genial, well-meaning, average man.
Insidiously, Olcott was pried loose from his sense of obliga-
tion to wife and family, his ties of affection for his sons, the
habits and associations of a lifetime. It is not a pleasant pic-
ture to watch. But labor pains are a grim business, and
H.P.B. was in the throes of creating “something out of the
way.”

As the Thayer assignment drew to a close, Serapis ac-
cepted the inevitable and gave instructions for the return to
New York in August 1875. He told Olcott to depart in
peace, but made it clear that he must assume responsibility
for H.P.B. and prevent her from returning in poverty and
despair to her husband in Philadelphia. Serapis kindly sug-
gested a way to handle the dear Sister: tell her you are both
going to Philadelphia, but instead of that buy tickets only
as far as New York for both of you. Arrived in New York,
Henry must find her a suitable apartment and never let a
single day pass without seeing her. If she were to return for
even a few hours to “that polluted mortal, Betanelly,” her
powers would suffer, and this in turn would cast a blight on
Olcott’s progress.

There were also long range instructions for the future.
Henry must promote the Sister, not as an adept of spirit-
ualism but as “an intellectual writer.” She must meet the
best intellects of the country. Olcott’s fortune would be
assured if he would drop everything else and devote himself
to her and to working on articles that the supernatural
powers would dictate to him through Helena. Finally, he
must not worry about his boys -they would be provided for.
He should concentrate rather on the welfare of Sister
Helena: “Watch over her and let her not come to harm,

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

our dear Sister who is so careless and thoughtless for her-
self.”

It was very crude, but not too crude for the Colonel.

2. BIRTH AND BAPTISM

(1875)

On a September evening shortly after her return from
Boston, Madame Blavatsky was hostess at an important
meeting. She was back on Irving Place in New York, near
the Lotos Club, and she lost no time in bringing together
in her long, old-fashioned parlor all her former friends,
devotees of occultism. Next to Olcott, the most important
was a young Englishman, Charles Sotheran, editor of the
American Bibliopolist, which specialized in news of rare
books and incunabula. A man of independent means, he
was a high-ranking Mason, a Rosicrucian, a student of the
Cabala. Impressed by Madame’s potential ability, Sotheran
exercised an important influence in those early years. His
versatility and his informed standards of judgment gave
H.P.B. the support and direction she needed while she was
floundering about equipped only with her natural mag-
netism and her interest in the occult. She was indebted to
Sotheran for vital encouragement in her bold venture of
cutting loose from her spiritualistic entanglements to set
sail upon an uncharted sea.

Sotheran made his contribution and dropped out. He was
too definite a person for H.P.B. to tolerate. William Quan
Judge, a clerk in Olcott’s law office, was just the reverse. A
young Irishman with mystical leanings, always susceptible
to new phases of magic and necromancy, he could see what-
ever Madame suggested. In the end, he became the leader
of the American Theosophists.

There was Signor Bruzzesi, whom they called II Conte,
sculptor, magician, member of the carbonari, onetime sec-
retary to Mazzini. He had known H.P.B. in Italy in the old

100

CREATING A CULT

Metrovitch days, and he tried to warn Olcott of what Mad-
ame was doing to him. But Olcott’s infatuation had gone too
far. Before Bruzzesi could do any harm, H.P.B. disposed of
him. She told him to go away, and he went. There were a
New Jersey judge and his poetess wife in fluttering pastel
scarves, Dr. Seth Pancoast, Madame’s physician from Phila-
delphia, the Reverend J. H. Wiggin spending a vacation in
New York. There were several varieties of cranks, faddists,
and freaks, all members of the intelligentsia, “the part of a
nation which aspires to independent thinking.” 8

It was Sotheran who brought the speaker for the first
informal gathering, J. H. Felt, architect and engineer, who
discussed Egyptian mysteries and the cabala. The company
agreed to meet again on the following Tuesday evening,
September 7, when Mr. Felt would lecture on “The Lost
Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians.” The seventeen
people present were deeply impressed. Felt told them that
the dog- and hawk-headed figures of Egyptian hieroglyphics
were accurate pictures of elementals, the spirits who convey
messages at stances. There was a flutter of excitement when
he said that he had discovered ancient formulas for evoking
these elementals, and agreed to demonstrate his powers if
they would pay the cost of the apparatus.

Olcott was enchanted. With Sotheran to lead the way
and Madame to furnish a magic spark, the Miracle Club’s
frustrated effort was happening of itself; the group was
finding a common purpose. Olcott scribbled a hasty note:
“Would it not be a good thing to form a society for this
kind of study?” H.P.B. nodded assent. The suggestion was
enthusiastically received. The Colonel was appointed Chair-
man, and later President, of the Theosophical Society. He
treasured the memory that he had taken the initiative with
his note, and never fully realized that Madame only used
him as a screen behind which to work.

The infant Society was named by Sotheran. Alert to the

8 Concise Oxford Dictionary .

lOl

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

danger of bogging down as one more stance circle, Sotheran
searched for a name that was different. Miracle Club
seemed to him cheap, Egyptological Society too limited.
Leafing through the dictionary he found theosophy, an
erudite and vague word; no one knew what it meant, which
was perfect. They adopted it at the next meeting. The-
osophy was bom and baptized. Between the Colonel’s love
of red tape and Madame’s ritualism, the Society was
launched with all the pomp planned for the Miracle Club.
They voted an official policy of secrecy; members wrote
F.T.S. (Fellow, Theosophical Society) after their names
and recognized each other by secret signs, most of them
borrowed from Egyptian occultism and the Grand Lodge
of Cairo. Most important of all, they established dues for
membership.

In view of H.P.B’s concern to get a dues-paying society
started, it was surprising that she should go away at this
critical moment. But she had a new idea that took preced-
ence over everything. Prominent among the group attend-
ing these first meetings were two pioneer spiritualists,
Emma Hardinge Britten, an Englishwoman, and her hus-
band, a former Universalist minister. Comparison of the
two women would suggest that Mrs. Britten had the better
chance of attaining fame, yet she is the one forgotten.

Mrs. Britten was an attractive woman and successful
medium known on both sides of the Atlantic. She had par-
ticipated in a recent investigation of spiritualism by the
London Dialectical Society. She had an important advan-
tage over Madame Blavatsky in that she was a gifted
speaker: month after month the spiritualist weeklies printed
her ninety-minute orations in full! Today they seem a
dreary waste of words, but, delivered in the elocutionary
tradition of the period, they made her famous. Cooper
Union had to turn people away on the April day in 1865
when she delivered her “Funeral Oration on Abraham
Lincoln,” and she had been making the welkin ring in a

102

CREATING A CULT

refined way ever since. As pioneers the Brittens had a pro-
prietary attitude toward spiritualism. Recognizing Madame
Blavatsky as a potential power, they watched her with mis-
givings and accepted positions on the committee in order
to keep an eye on her.

At their first meeting Mrs. Britten had announced the
publication of Art Magic. She modestly insisted that she
was only the amanuensis, not the author, for the new book
had been dictated to her by a learned French adept, the
Chevalier Louis, a lifelong and honored friend. Unable to
find a publisher, Mrs. Britten had published the book her-
self and was charging five dollars for it. She wrote the Colo-
nel a polite note, staking her claim and recognizing the
coincidence that the book already in print and the newly or-
ganized Society were both based on an affirmation of cer-
tain elements of occultism: “the dignity of ancient Occult
science, the existence of Adepts, the reality of the contrast
between White and Black magic, the existence of the
Astral Light, the swarming of Elemental races in the
regions air, earth . . .” 4

It dawned upon H.P.B. that she was missing another op-
portunity. First she had been too late for the heyday of
spiritualism, and now this Englishwoman had gotten ahead
of her with a book of higher criticism pointing out the
abuses of spiritualism, sounding the clarion note of reform,
rallying mankind to the lofty traditions cherished from
time immemorial. And— clever idea— it had all been dic-
tated to her by an adept.

When H.P.B’s efforts to tie up Gerry Brown and his
weekly came to nothing, she had inevitably considered
writing a book. Her patchy education, her years of self-
indulgence, her total lack of training, made it a formidable
prospect. During the summer she had taken the precaution
of showing the Colonel several sheets of manuscript. “I
wrote this last night ‘by order’ but what the deuce it is to

4 Olcott: O.D.L., 1, 186.

103

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

be, I don’t know. Perhaps it is for a newspaper article, per-
haps for a book, perhaps for nothing; anyhow, I did as I
was ordered.” Then, said the Colonel, she put the pages
back in a bureau drawer.®

At the second meeting of her infant Society, on Septem-
ber 13, Madame listened enviously to the discussion of
Mrs. Britten’s new book. By the next morning she was on
her way, in a rash that made Olcott’s head spin. The previ-
ous spring Professor Hiram Corson of Cornell had invited
her to visit his home. Now she must go at once. But, but,
quavered Olcott— the Society? Madame gave him a wither-
ing glance. Did he presume to question the orders of the
Brotherhood of Luxor? Olcott obediently sat down and
wrote to Professor Corson, apologizing for Madame’s delay
in answering his last letter; she had been so absorbed in
things of another world. “Madame Blavatsky will probably
go to Albany by tomorrow evening’s boat.” He dared not be
more definite; she could change her plans a dozen times
before tomorrow evening.

She did not change her mind. If that frivolous, fluttering
Britten woman could write a book, so could she, and a
better one. But she must have help. A professor in a uni-
versity ought to do nicely; he sounded like an “intellectual
writer.” Professor Corson was head of the Department of
English Literature at Cornell and widely known for his
popular studies of the standard English authors: Browning,
Tennyson, Shakespeare. Corson on Browning was a classic
in women’s clubs and Browning Societies. Mrs. Corson, the
former Caroline Rollin of Paris and Boston, was another
“intellectual writer,” rather far ahead of her time, for she
was translating Pierre Janet on The Mental State of Hysteri-
cal in the early 90’s. After the death of their only daughter
in July 1874, the Corsons had become ardent spiritualists
and like most bereaved devotees were on the lookout for
mediums having greater “power,” able to receive clearer
* Ibid., 1, 202

104

CREATING A CULT

messages from the loved ones on the other side. On the
strength of H.P.B’s extravagant declarations in support of
their cult, the Professor had invited her to visit them. She
wrote warning him of her wild Russian ways. She smoked,
she swore, she had numerous bad habits. But he only re-
peated the invitation.

The Corsons lived high up the hillside overlooking Lake
Cayuga; they were disappointed when Madame never even
glanced at their view. They were taken aback too by the
way she made herself at home, requiring many special at-
tentions, but giving little in return. She dressed in her cus-
tomary loose wrappers, spotted and untidy, under gaudy
Russian jackets. Cigarette papers in one pocket, a bag of
tobacco in the other, she smoked perpetually, as much as
two hundred cigarettes a day, the Professor said, sprinkling
tobacco and ashes over the rugs, throwing stubs everywhere
until the flower pots were full of them. They could not
induce her to go for a walk; instead she sat bent over a desk,
turning out twenty-five pages of manuscript and innumer-
able letters each day. She set the Professor to checking her
classical quotations in the Cornell Library, and he told his
friends that she was a smart woman, “but ignorant of all the
graces and amenities of life, she is a great Russian bear .” 4

H.P.B. left her desk long enough to visit the local photog-
rapher, the Professor going along to carry a valise full of
Russian scarves and jackets. She was so well pleased that she
ordered five dozen of the pictures. At the end of a fortnight,
Mrs. Corson, insisting that she needed fresh air, took her
for a drive, cautioning her that she must not smoke in
public. Before long, however, she demanded a cigarette.
Older residents of Ithaca hand down an amusing story of
Madame’s insisting that they stop the horses; sitting on a
rock beside the road, with her back still turned to the view,
she peacefully had her smoke.

6 Eugene Rollin Corson: Some Unpublished Letters of H. P. Blavatsky ,

p. 120.

105

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

The refusal by Madame to hold stances served as a final
test of the Corsons' patience. When, at the end of a month,
in mid-October 1875, she seemed settled for an indefinite
stay, her hosts reluctantly asked her to go, and there was
constraint on both sides at parting. H.P.B. did not propose
to lose such a celebrity as Dr. Corson, however, and she
refused to take offense, writing a short time later: “This is
my third letter, and no answer. . . . Are you mad with
me?”

3. ISIS UNVEILED

(1875-7)

Back in New York, H.P.B. was forced to submit to the
common lot of authors. Shaking off her preoccupation with
writing, she had occasionally to render first aid to the
casualties of daily life. Book or no book, the Society de-
manded attention. Anticipating her return from Ithaca, the
Colonel had called a meeting of the Society for the very
next day, October 13, 1875. H.P.B. made a wry face when
she learned that he had innocently accepted Mrs. Britten’s
offer to meet in her home. It never happened again.

Living arrangements were also hanging fire. Serapis had
done effective spadework. Madame Blavatsky and the Colo-
nel took apartments temporarily on West 34th Street,
where the Lincoln Tunnel now dives under the Hudson
River. They soon moved to a large, pleasant apartment at
302 West 47th Street, nicknamed by their newspaper
friends The Lamasery. The Colonel, though no great suc-
cess as a lawyer, had previously supported his family in
modest comfort. When he abandoned his wife to live
openly with another woman, his insistence on a Platonic
relationship was not convincing to Mrs. Olcott. The move
to 47th street marked Olcott’s complete surrender to H.P.B.
Serapis had failed with Gerry Brown, but he succeeded
with Olcott: “Remain firmly linked together and TRY to

106

CREATING A CULT

inhabit the same places where her fate, guided by the
wisdom of the Brotherhood may lead her to.”

Forewarned by grim memories of those last years in
Odessa with Metrovitch, H.P.B. had no intention of sub-
mitting to petty economies, and she made it clear from the
outset that she had no domestic accomplishments, trying to
boil the breakfast eggs by placing them in their shells on the
live coals. Olcott gave in and hired a negro servant. On
Sundays, the maid’s night out, Olcott not Madame, got
supper. They changed servants frequently; the girls objected
to the spooky goings-on and to Madame’s hair-trigger
temper. Olcott’s first hurdle in the fascinating new life
was adapting himself to these tempers. As soon as he was
publicly committed, H.P.B. no longer troubled to con-
ceal her mounting irritation with his leisurely, provincial
ways. Serapis’s quaint wooing of Brother Mine ended
abruptly. Olcott had burned his bridges, and Madame
did not spare him. Confident that he would not rebel,
she flew into towering rages regardless of who was present.
Some of the guests were embarrassed, some amused. Dr.
Rawson, her beau in those long-ago Egyptian days, has
described these scenes with wry humor: Helena, the bril-
liant fascinating hostess one minute, scorching the ears
of the company the next. On the most trivial pretext she
would fly into a “divine passion,” working herself into
a frenzy, cursing and screaming at Olcott until she was
making only “insane yawps.” It was, said the Doctor with
impersonal objectivity, an amusing though hair-raising spec-
tacle. Something a shade pioprietary in Sotheran’s attitude
frequently goaded her into tantrums.

“I say, Sotheran,” Rawson asked him one day, “why will
you persist in rousing the tigress?”

Sotheran tipped his head back and smiled. “It is the best
way to open the storehouse of her spirit,” he replied.

The Lamasery was in an old-fashioned walk-up apartment

107

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

house— flats they were called— still standing on the south-
west comer of 8th Avenue and 47th Street, red brick and
brown stone with granite trim. The library became a famous
room, a salon where H.P.B. presided as prophetess and
sybil over an infatuated group, forever eager for new won-
ders. The room was a Victorian potpourri: plush chairs and
sofas, bear skin rugs, palms, pedestals, and statuary. A
stuffed owl looked down from a gilded cornice over velvet
draperies; a suit of armor grasped a pike. One side of the
room was a mural, a jungle effect of dried leaves glued to
the wall and in the foreground a cardboard elephant and
tiger, real stuffed lizards, and a baboon, a serpent coiled
about the trunk of a palm tree, all rather dusty. A lion’s
head peered over a clump of grass; a bat with outspread
wings hovered transfixed over the doorway. Crowded book-
shelves and a desk piled high with papers gave a flavor of
the workshop. The “Theosophical Twins” amused them-
selves window-shopping in Sixth Avenue pawnshops, pick-
ing up tarnished curios: a cuckoo clock, lacquer cabinets, a
placid Buddha. They followed a simple, hard-working rou-
tine, breakfast at 8, dinner at 6. It had been Olcott’s custom
to drop in at the Lotos Club every afternoon, but he soon
gave up his club as well as his family, hurrying back to the
Lamasery to sit beside H.P.B. and edit the day’s output of
manuscript.

Of the dozen men who formed H.P.B’s intimate circle
during the two years (1875-77) that she was writing Isis
Unveiled, three played leading parts: Sotheran, who pro-
vided the initial inspiration and suggested the direction and
mood of the new cult; Olcott, who paid the bills, edited the
manuscript, and supported her with unshattered admira-
tion and credulity, and Dr. Wilder, old friend of Olcott’s,
scholar, antiquarian, and occultist.

Alexander Wilder represented the American homemade
scholarship of an earlier day. Helena cultivated him

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CREATING A CULT

shrewdly. Although he was another of those odd American
types, and not a gentleman in her sense, she perceived his
quality. She repeated the soothing treatment that she and
Serapis had given Olcott, but more cautiously. Olcott told
her all he knew about the man. At fifteen. Wilder had be-
come a schoolteacher in the simple farming community of
his native Oneida County, New York. After an unhappy
few years married to a cousin, he left her and went to the
big city. Gradually Helena won his confidence, encouraged
him to talk about his versatile past. He had supplemented
schoolteaching with farming and typesetting, between
times teaching himself Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. A man
of deep prejudices, he disapproved of the current practice
of medicine and put himself through Syracuse Medical Col-
lege in order to be independent of physicians. A few years
of newspaper work in Syracuse prepared him for a position
on the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post where
he remained for fifteen years, dabbling in New York and
New Jersey politics. Pursuing the hobby of his own brand of
medicine, he founded successively an Eclectic Medical So-
ciety, school, and magazine. He had written a dozen books
and served as editor and collaborator for another dozen,
studies of occultism and magic bearing formidable titles,
Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, Serpent and Siva Wor-
ship, or A Translation of the Theurgian of Iamblichos. He
was an authority on Plato.

The circumstance that Dr. Wilder was on the staff of
J. W. Bouton was not the least of his charms. Bouton the
publisher, alert for rising tides of interest, had begun several
years earlier to reprint the classics of occult and esoteric
literature, previously accessible only to scholars in the
world’s great libraries. Suddenly these books had acquired
a public titillated by pretentious titles and willing to
pay from seven to ten dollars per volume to see what was
inside. Bouton’s lists ran over the borders of his field into

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such scholarly erotica as Pierre Dufour’s six-volume History
of Prostitution and a one-volume (but very learned) treatise
on phallic symbolism priced at thirty-five dollars.

As Bouton’s expert on esoterica, Dr. Wilder recom-
mended the publication of Isis Unveiled, on which he was
an unacknowledged collaborator. He had moved to Newark
on his appointment as Inspector of Education in that city,
but he was in New York several times a week lecturing at
medical schools, and he enjoyed stopping in to see the bril-
liant H.P.B. Returning to his drab furnished room at night,
it was pleasant to find a note from her patting him on the
back, showing intelligent appreciation of his latest edition
of the classics. Olcott was out of town, she wrote, but he
would be back in time to discuss that legal problem, or she
could send downtown for the clerk, Judge. She would have
a bed ready for him for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and
would expect him for dinner on all those days, so please
come! There were several matters on her mind; Bouton had
told her to have Dr. Wilder decide whether to make Isis
one or two volumes. And then the Introduction— would he
kindly write a "Profession of Faith” to insert at the be-
ginning of Part III?

Madame exploiting her childhood glimpses of Siberian
shamans, her Egyptian adventures with Rawson, could not
resist patronizing the doctor: she could not imagine where
he had picked up some of his information, which she hap-
pened to know was held in closest secrecy. “Well, you
ought to go East and get initiated!” The Doctor smiled at
her superior tone. It is easy to recognize the rise of the
doctor's influence by the sudden appearance in October
1875 of learned references to Iamblichos, Porphyry, Ap-
polonius, the Neo-Platonists in H.P.B’s conversation and
writings. Dr. Wilder, student, supplemented Colonel Ol-
cott, promoter, to perfection. The Doctor had a scholar’s
instincts, loving the work for its own sake, scorning head-
lines. Innocent of the urge to see his name in print, he had

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spent many years of his life editing, translating, and an-
notating the work of others. Madame credited him with
preparing the fifty-page index of Isis Unveiled, for which
he was paid by Bouton. She also gave him the acknowl-
edgment of forty or fifty footnotes. These were the least of
his contributions. She drew on him liberally for ideas, ma-
terial, references, and criticism. Wilder was content to let
the credit go. He had enjoyed the friendship of this un-
usual woman, and he was accustomed to rendering the
unacknowledged services of editor and ghost-writer.

Repudiating human assistance, H.P.B. ascribed the au-
thorship of Isis not to herself, but to the Masters of Wis-
dom who used her as a mouthpiece, sometimes occupying
her body, sometimes dictating to her. At her desk she acted
her part with gusto, and Olcott was impressed as he watched
her; hour after hour her hand flew back and forth across
the sheets. Suddenly she would stop, gazing into space with
a vacant eye, look at something hanging invisible in the air
before her, and begin to copy it down. After two years of
daily collaboration, Olcott was convinced that she drew the
twelve hundred pages of Isis from the astral light and from
her spirit guides. One such collaborator was the Old Pla-
tonist who, remaining invisible, talked by the hour, dictat-
ing copy, checking references, answering questions. The
spirit Old Platonist would be more convincing if there had
not been an Old Platonist in the flesh— Dr. Wilder, who
also talked by the hour, checking references and answering
questions. This idea of supernatural dictation was not new;
it is found in most cults. H.P.B. may also have owed a
direct suggestion to Mrs. Britten and her adept, the Cheva-
lier Louis, who dictated Art Magic.

Theosophists call particular attention to Madame's amaz-
ing feat in producing this two-volume work including hun-
dreds of citations and quotations without access to the great
libraries. The Colonel said that their working library con-
tained scarcely one hundred books of reference. On exami-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

nation, this claim rather falls to pieces. At least half a dozen
men in H.P.B's intimate circle either owned or had access
to exceptional collections of esoterica. Sotheran, as editor
of the Bibliopolist, specialized in rare editions. Dr. Seth
Pancoast had the finest private collection of books on oc-
cultism in the United States; Dr. Ditson of Albany also had
a collection. Dr. Wilder, editor of Bouton’s reprints of the
classics of occultism, was engaged in research over the en-
tire field.

The devastating criticism of William Emmette Coleman
showed how to eliminate any need for real research. Cole-
man made a meticulous study, tracing back all of H.P.B’s
learned quotations to one hundred standard reference
books, which he named. He listed the number of plagiarized
passages, which ran as high as one hundred and thirty-four
from Dunlap’s Sod: the Son of the Man, and one hundred
and seven from Ennemoser’s History of Magic. Coleman
was convinced that H.P.B’s pretense of having consulted
original documents was all a bluff. It is interesting that
Coleman’s one hundred titles coincides with Olcott’s esti-
mate of their library.

The last stages of producing Isis were a nightmare. It is a
shock to any writer to read his first set of proofs. Phrases
that seemed to do well enough in manuscript stare back
mockingly from the formality of printed type. Untamed by
any experience of a writer’s discipline, H.P.B. had probably
never heard of such ideals as unity, coherence, and brevity.
When her galley proofs came back, she was beside herself.
In vain the more experienced Olcott tried to restrain her.
She changed and slashed until Mr. Bouton put his foot
down. He was printing only one thousand copies, and when
her alterations had cost him six hundred dollars, he refused
to accept further changes. He did not know his Helena. She
continued to make corrections even after the metal plates
had been cast, having the metal cut in order to transpose
paragraphs and insert additional material.

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Finally, in September 1875, Isis appeared, two volumes,
twelve hundred pages. Madame had wanted to write a
vade mecum for the use of every Theosophist, but her
weakness for superlatives betrayed her. Isis Unveiled was
too long, too heavy, too formidable, to become the be-
loved companion of the faithful. H.P.B. was further handi-
capped in that she had not yet formulated the objectives of
her Society. So far she had announced only that it would
"collect and diffuse knowledge of the laws which govern
the universe,” a grandiose ideal that would cover almost
any development, but did not lend itself to intimate treat-
ment.

Isis Unveiled supported this vague statement, for Mad-
ame had a theme in mind that gave the sprawling books a
certain harassed unity or direction. It was that all religions
are an expression of the same fundamental truth and spring
from the same supreme source, but that they deteriorate
rapidly at the hands of man through commercialism, priest-
craft, and hypocrisy. Volume one covered the field of
science; volume two finished off theology. Attacking the
pretensions of both, H.P.B. sought to prove that their
achievements were sterile and confused because they had
become detached from the main stream of truth, the an-
cient teachings of occultism.

In an encounter that she later elaborated into a mystical
revelation, Madame had been commissioned by supernatu-
ral powers to rescue this body of ultimate truth for the
benefit of mankind. She thought of it in curiously simplified
terms. It was The Ancient Wisdom, secret laws and for-
mulas that had given the adepts of old control of occult
forces, power to perform occult phenomena. With the ad-
vance of science and materialism, man has discarded this
lore as ignorant superstition, thereby losing supernatural
powers that Madame claimed to possess and that she pro-
posed to restore to such Theosophists as proved worthy.
With ingenious variations she was following the familiar

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pattern of the saint, distinguished from the mass of man-
kind by a revelation.

Isis Unveiled was an olla-podrida, a catchall, overflowing
with myths, fragments, borrowings from the classics, every
item intended to bolster up and somehow authenticate the
mysteries of magic and sorcery. The primary purpose of the
book was to restore the prestige of occultism and the black
arts. Chapters on serpent worship, devil myths, witchcraft,
and alchemy rubbed shoulders with theories of psychic
phenomena, a mocking chapter on The Infallibility of
Modern Science, and such quaint perversions as a “scientific
report” that in the state of Wyoming male rabbits had been
observed suckling their young.

Unhindered by literary conventions, Madame Blavatsky
used this opportunity to toss bouquets to men who might
be useful: Horace Greeley; the Honorable John L. O’Sul-
livan, ex-Ambassador to Portugal; P. B. Randolph, leading
American Rosicrucian; Prince Wittgenstein; the Honorable
A. N. Aksakov. Conversely she permitted herself vigorous
whacks at her antipathies. The Order of Jesuits led her
black list, followed by the Roman Catholic Church, all
Protestant churches and their clergy, especially the Rever-
end Henry Ward Beecher, almost all scientists, and almost
all spiritualists, especially D. D. Home.

Making allowance for adverse criticisms— that her col-
laborators did much of the work, that Madame plagiarized
on a vast scale— Isis Unveiled is a monument to more than
industry and tenacity; it has that certain intrepidity which
radiates from a vision of old facts transformed by a new and
original approach. Fundamentally Isis was the expression of
a brilliant and frustrated woman rebelling against the hum-
drum routine of life, escaping like Alice through a looking-
glass into a world where everything was fascinating because
it was different, off the normal. But Madame was more than
an iconoclast, she was, in her day, a pioneer in her defense
of ancient and especially Oriental civilizations, in promot-

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ing recognition of and respect for the achievements of the
past. With sketchy and inaccurate knowledge of Buddhism
and Brahmanism, she confidently brought their wisdom
and culture to the attention of the rest of the world. In
Isis Unveiled Madame did valuable spade work in attacking
the smug complacence of the West. She contributed to the
leavening influence that is gradually breaking down the old
white-man’s-burden arrogance in England and the United
States and preparing the way for a spirit of internationalism.

Isis Unveiled was also ahead of its time in the field of
science. Although Madame showed no discrimination, ac-
cepting transparent hoaxes as scientific findings, she gave
genuine recognition to the importance of early experiments
in mesmerism, hypnotism, telepathy. Several generations of
psychologists have devoted their lives to patient experi-
mentation, hoping to establish principles that Madame
glimpsed, approved, and swallowed in a hasty gulp. Perhaps
her sensitiveness to unseen forces, her groping for an ap-
plied science to control such forces is the nearest we can
come to a definition of her mysterious, but by all accounts
overpowering, psychic quality.

Galloping off in all directions at once to tilt at every wind-
mill in sight, Dona Quixote Blavatsky added spiritualism to
her main objects of attack, Christianity and modern science.
Although it must have hurt her to agree with D. D. Home,
Isis followed his lead in pointing out the weakness and the
danger of spiritualism, the overwhelming temptation to
cheat that it imposed upon frail human nature. It is doubt-
ful that Madame could have made a living out of a con-
scientious exploitation of her glimpses of truth. Ironically
she fell victim to the very danger that her book expounded
to the spiritualists, the temptation to pretend to more
psychic power than she had, and to progress by easy stages
from cautious beginnings to gross fraud and hocus-pocus.

The reception of Isis Unveiled was disappointing. At
first the spiritualist press was respectful, overawed by the

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size. But the daily press had no inhibitions. “A large dish of
hash,” quipped the Springfield Republican. “Discarded
rubbish,” scoffed the New York Sun. “Crude and undi-
gested,” grumbled the Tribune, and thought that Mad-
ame’s incoherent accounts of Brahmanism and Buddhism
suggested presumption rather than information. The New
York Times refused to review the book and, in answer to
Bouton's protests, explained privately that they had “a holy
horror of Madame Blavatsky and her letters.” Let the critics
jeer. The edition sold out within ten days and The Ameri-
can Bookseller commented: “The sale is unprecedented for
a work of its kind.”

When Isis Unveiled was three days old, the happy parent
wrote to her friend M. Aksakov: “My darling was born last
Saturday, September 29th.” She enclosed a clipping from
the New York Herald, the only daily to carry a neutral re-
view. Proudly H.P.B. quoted: the book “is one of the most
remarkable productions of the century.” That might mean
anything.

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CHAPTER VIII

NECROMANCY Inc.

(1876—7)

SO FAR the Theosophical Society was only a potential or-
ganization. Taking Mr. Felt’s tall talk literally, the members
had elected him Vice-President, financed him to the extent
of one hundred dollars, and waited hopefully for his dog-
faced elementals. He never produced any, confessed Olcott,
“not even the tip end of the tail of the tiniest nature-spirit.”

The spiritualists snickered. Antagonized by H.P.B’s elf-
appointed mission to clean them up and by her patronizing
quotations from the illuminati, they all resigned when the
dog-faces failed to appear. Madame, absorbed in Isis Un-
veiled, had to let the Society languish except for occasional
publicity stunts.

One Sunday morning in July 1876 the Founders noticed
an item in the paper about nine ship-wrecked Mussulman
Arabs who, after wandering about the streets for two days
and nights, had been given emergency shelter in Bellevue
Hospital. The word Mussulman caught H.P.B’s eye; noth-
ing from the East was alien to her. As Olcott told the press,
“They are fellow heathen like ourselves— we must help
them.” He raised two thousand dollars and arranged to
return his heathen brethren to Tunis in charge of E. S.

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The procession will move in the following order:

Col. Olcott as high priest, wearing a leopard skin and carrying
a roll of papyrus (brown card-board) .

Mr. Cobb as Sacred Scribe with style and tablet.

Egyptian mummy case, borne upon a sledge drawn by four oxen.
(Also a slave bearing a pot of lubricating oil) . '

Mme. Blavatsky as Chief Mourner and Bearer of the Sistrum.

Colored boy bearing 3 Abyssinian geese (Philadelphia chickens) .

Vice-President Felt, with the eye of Osiris painted on his left
breast and carrying an asp (bought at toy store on 8th
avenue).

Dr. Pancoast singing an ancient Theban dirge:

Isis and Mepthys, beginning and end;

One more victim to Amenti we send;

Pay we the fare and let us not tarry.

Cross the Styx by the Roosevelt street ferry.

Boys carrying a large lotus (sunflower). . . - 1

The Colonel claimed that the buffoonery cost him a
client worth ten thousand dollars a year, but it remained a
fond memory, and in his memoirs he devoted thirty-eight
pages to this foolish episode.

Disillusionment followed. The first shock came when the
Colonel opened the Baron’s trunk and found two of his
own shirts with his name tags ripped off. The trunk also
contained some shabby underwear, unpaid bills, letters
from actresses, and old passports. That was all. The Colonel
claimed that the Wisconsin acreage had been sold for taxes,
that the Chicago property was worthless, that the castles
existed only in the air. It seems strange however, that the
Colonel as lawyer and executor did not discover more
promptly that the Baron’s estate existed only on paper. Half
a year after the Baron’s death, H.P.B. was still making
elaborate plans for an around-the-world expedition of eight
persons to be financed by his bequest.

According to more sympathetic accounts, the Baron had
hobnobbed with half the crowned heads of Europe during

1 Olcott: O.D.L., 1, 153.

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his diplomatic career and had been decorated with the
highest insignia of Catholic knighthood. In this country he
had negotiated with such bigwigs as Astor, Stewart, and
Commodore Vanderbilt. A widely circulated report that he
had left in his trunk a manuscript that was the basis of her
Isis Unveiled was particularly vexing to Madame. To dis-
credit the Baron she had Olcott publish correspondence
from Bavarian officials that, while confirming his descent
from an old and noble family, stated that he had a dubious
record of debts and debauchery.

Gossip about H.P.B’s indebtedness to the Baron boiled
over into the press. William H. Burr, official reporter of the
United States Senate, called on Dr. Wilder in several open
letters to affirm or deny the charges that he had helped to
write Isis and that the original manuscript had been left to
H.P.B. by the late Baron de Palm. After long delay, Dr.
Wilder issued an evasive denial. Many years later the Doc-
tor, who weighed his words and had known the Baron well,
wrote that “whatever the Baron possessed of value he be-
stowed upon them,” clearly implying that the Baron had
possessed something of value and that he gave it to H.P.B.
and the Colonel. 2

On the theory that any old publicity was better than
none, H.P.B. continued to lend herself to trivial adventures
and facetious publicity: a trip to the circus to pass judgment
on Egyptian sorcerers, who turned out to be French jug-
glers, an all-night watch on a wind-swept pile of lumber be-
side the East River— with some reporters— for a ghost that
failed to walk. Scraping the bottom of the publicity barrel,
she signed her name to a bizarre document. No sooner had
Isis gone to press than she wrote, on May 5, 1877, a remark-
able letter to the New York World. A Chinese lecturer,
Wong Chin Foo, had been her guest at the Lamasery, and
she complained that Mr. Wong and other friends had re-
ceived anonymous warnings accusing her of drunkenness,
2 The Word, 1908 .

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

forgery, being a Russian spy, being an anti-Russian spy, hav-
ing been jailed for theft, murdering seven husbands, bigamy,
being the mistress of Colonel Olcott, of a Polish Count, and
of an acrobat— “other things might be mentioned but
decency forbids.” (See Appendix E, page 322.)

This Paul Bunyan extravaganza list is most significant. It
employed one of H.P.B’s favorite weapons, ridiculing ac-
cusations by the use of fantastic exaggeration. The murder
of seven husbands was grotesque, and it was supposed to
make all the other charges seem equally absurd. But many
of them were true or nearly true, bigamy for instance. The
mistress of a Polish Count suggests Baron Meyendorf; the
mistress of an acrobat suggests her circus experience. Per-
haps the seven husbands (unmurdered) were not too wide
of the mark! Her mention of the Russian spy charge at this
early date is particularly interesting: the same accusation
caused her great embarrassment in India a few years later.
If it was false, as she indignantly claimed, it seems odd that
she should have anticipated the charge years in advance.
This list of voluntary self-indictments, broadcast to the
world through a daily newspaper, is a remarkably suggestive
performance. It resembled a confession, and curiously sug-
gests the compulsion of a criminal to revisit the scene of his
crime.

It satisfied some perverse urge for Madame to call her-
self names in public but she fought back savagely when
others tried it. Her bitterest controversy was with Daniel
Home, the famous medium, who, rising from humble be-
ginnings showed an aptitude for intimacy with titles and
crowned heads. He must have been a skilful diplomat, but
not with H.P.B. He never forgave her for charging his inti-
mate friend Baron Meyendorf with the paternity of her
child. After Home’s early retirement he wrote several books
exposing the abuses and frauds practiced by many mediums,
and in his last book he devoted an entire chapter of wither-
ing satire to the pretensions of Theosophists. He centered

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this attack on Olcott, but gave Madame some severe raps.
He could not have humiliated her more effectively than
by pointing out the absurdity of her story about her father’s
medal (page 72). For Home, a nobody, had married Mile
Julie, daughter of a Russian Councillor of State, receiving
a wedding present from the Czar himself, and having an
entree to those circles from which H.P.B. had exiled herself
and which she so passionately regretted. She plunged into
incoherent counterattack: Home was dragging her through
the ditches . . . she hoped to God the immaculate me-
dium would leave Theosophy alone, confine his attentions
to her and “cast his venomous slime solely upon my . . .
broad back. . . .”

Only the Spiritual Scientist would print her invective,
and she realized that this moribund little sheet could not
hurt Daniel Home lounging in luxurious ease on the Ri-
viera with his charming Julie. By a lucky chance she had a
more direct access: A. N. Aksakov was Julie’s first cousin
and sufficiently important to be able to exert pressure on
the great Daniel. Helena poured out her grievances in seven
long letters to Aksakov: how was she interfering with
Home, she who had devoted her whole life to the study of
the cabala and the occult sciences? She really could not
“just because the devil got me into trouble in my youth, go
and rip up my stomach now like a Japanese suicide.” Home
was making life impossible for her. He had driven her
out of Europe, and now was driving her out of the United
States; she had nothing left to do but start for Australia
and change her name forever. But, and here she turned
at bay, if Home did not hold his tongue— and she gave
samples of the unpleasant stories she would tell about
him! In her next letter she had decided to go not to Aus-
tralia but to India, “for very shame and vexation I want to
go where no one will know my name. Home’s malignity has
ruined me forever in Europe .” 3 This was probably H.P.B’s

"Solovyoff: p.278.

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first definite statement of her decision to go to India. It was
dated October 2, 1877. She sailed one year later.

2. FAREWELL TO AMERICA

(1878)

While Madame had labored over Isis Unveiled, the Theo-
sophical Society had expired. The Colonel admitted frankly
that “from the close of 1876” on, meetings were discon-
tinued and fees abolished. The influential spiritualists had
all resigned, the by-laws were a dead letter. 4 Instead of pro-
moting her Society, Madame, relaxing from long hours at
her desk, had established a salon. She was at her best as a
hostess and amid the weird shadows and half-lights of the
Lamasery she had gathered about her a spontaneous and
often witty group representing the arts, sciences, profes-
sions, and every phase of occultism. The only difficulty was
that a salon brought in no dues and contributed nothing
toward paying the butcher and baker. With Isis off her
hands, she could no longer dodge the issue. She made sev-
eral efforts to join forces with established secret societies,
hoping to wangle a paid position, however humble, and
trusting to her ingenuity to work her way up. She consulted
eminent Rosicrucians and Freemasons, but found them un-
enthusiastic. The trouble was that she had nothing to offer
except a name, a cloak of secrecy, and a short list of ex-
members.

When H.P.B. had exhausted the esoteric resources of
America, she turned to the Orient. As it happened, it was
her partner who established the first contact with India dur-
ing the winter of 1877-8. An old friend of Olcott’s, James
M. Peebles, returning from a trip around the world, called
at the Lamasery and happened to recognize a photograph
of a Hindu, Moolji Thackersey, in a group picture hanging
on the wall. Olcott had met Thackersey when crossing the

4 Olcott: O.D.L., 1, 331.

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Atlantic in 1870. Peebles, just back from Bombay, also
knew him, and gave Olcott his address. The Colonel wrote
to the Hindu the very next day, and Thackersey in turn
introduced him by letter to the Swami Dayanand Saraswati,
one of the great figures of nineteenth-century India. At that
time still unknown even in his own country, the Swami was
in the midst of creating the Arya Samaj, a reform move-
ment that has exerted a powerful influence against Hindu-
ism’s worst abuses, the caste system and cruel customs af-
fecting women. The Swami exhorted Hindus to reform,
not by copying the west, but by reviving pride in their own
culture; he sought to restore the purity of the ancient Hindu
tradition with the cry “Back to the Vedas,” recalling Lu-
ther’s “Back to the Bible.”

The Swami’s thesis fitted in neatly with H.P.B’s nostalgia
for the past. She liked to jeer at modem scientists, insisting
that the alchemists and necromancers of old anticipated
most of their discoveries and more, for she credited them
with a vast body of arcane knowledge and occult power that
has been virtually lost to mankind for several centuries. It
was her purpose to revive this knowledge. She put some-
thing of all this into Olcott’s first letter to the Swami, ad-
dressing him, though he was only seven years her senior, in
a flow of rhetoric: “You venerable man who have learned
to pierce the disguises and masks of your fellow creatures,
look into our hearts and see that we speak the truth. . . .”

When an interpreter read the letter to the Swami— he
did not understand English— he was gratified to discover in
far-off America a friend who was also groping toward a re-
vival of ancient Hinduism. He responded courteously to
these advances, and H.P.B. threw herself headlong into a
public alliance with this unknown Oriental and his un-
known organization. In his second letter, the Swami gravely
consented to H.P.B’s proposal to amalgamate her Society
with the Arya Samaj. She had a cut made of the Swami’s sig-
nature with its Sanskrit pothooks and ordered a new mem-

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bership certificate, signed by the Swami and bearing the
inscription:

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF THE ARYA SAMAJ

Early in April 1878, on the heels of Olcott’s first letter
to the Swami, H.P.B. suffered one of those hysterical at-
tacks which she was beginning to utilize as supernatural vis-
itations. It followed the pattern of the Philadelphia seizure
three years earlier. She lost consciousness one morning
while sitting at her desk and lay in a trance for five days.
The Colonel and his sister, Mrs. Mitchell, gave her up as
dead, and were about to bury her when they received a tele-
gram from a Master in Bombay: “Fear nothing, she is
neither dead nor ill, but she had need of repose.” This tele-
gram was supposed to mark the beginning of the transfer of
authority from the Egyptian Brotherhood of Luxor to the
hierarchy of Indian Masters or Mahatmas. Unfortunately,
the Colonel's memoirs failed to mention this memorable
illness and receipt of the first message from a Mahatma,
which suggests that the entire incident, as related by sister
Vera 8 was another of Madame’s afterthoughts. However,
it made a popular legend.

By the summer of 1878, H.P.B. was concentrating all her
efforts on the move to India. Exile from the United States
was costing Olcott a painful wrench, and she prepared to
force his hand. A year earlier, in July 1877, she had had the
skeleton Society go through the form of authorizing the
transfer of the organization’s headquarters to whatever for-
eign country might seem expedient. Now she took an odd
precaution. She agreed to pay the expenses of an English
man and woman to India: she feared that English officials
in India might suspect them as spies, and English people
in their party would disarm suspicion. It seemed an expen-
sive and unnecessary gesture to Olcott, but she overrode his
protests.

* Lucifer, November 1894.

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The Englishman, E. Wimbridge, artist and architect,
had an impressive manner, and made himself so agreeable
that H.P.B. invited him to stay at the Lamasery until they
sailed, giving him the Baron’s old room. Olcott used to
wander off to bed at midnight, leaving them to discuss mys-
teries until far into the morning. They found relaxation in
innocent summer outings. Olcott hired a carriage and team
of horses and H.P.B. with her two men drove the dozen
miles to the Long Island shore. She was grossly fat by this
time, and made a grotesque figure, her skirt wopsed up
above her knees, paddling in her bare feet on the beach
while the men went swimming.

Rosa Bates, the Englishwoman, an acidulous ex-govem-
ess in her late thirties, was not accepted on such intimate
terms. Olcott prophesied that she would be a troublemaker,
but she was English, which was all that interested H.P.B.
at the moment.

Getting ready to leave America forever, Madame Blavat-
sky took the trouble to become an American citizen on
July 8, 1878, the very day that her five years residence made
her eligible. It was a strange thing to do. Beneath all the lay-
ers of cynicism and disillusionment, H.P.B. had one vul-
nerable spot, one throbbing vein of sentiment, a passionate
love of Russia. She admitted to her aunt her distaste for the
whole proceedings. It had been a dreadful day, she wrote;
she resented the wording of our oath of allegiance and
had choked with emotion when she had to renounce obe-
dience to the Emperor of Russia, feeling herself an apostate
and political renegade, “I was awfully scared when pro-
nouncing this blackguardly recantation.” Her American
citizenship turned out a fortunate precaution, however,
when, as she had anticipated, she was suspected by the Brit-
ish of being a Russian spy.

During H.P.B’s last days in the United States a forlorn
echo reached her of the man she had jilted. She was served
with final papers in the Betanelly divorce suit, but she gave

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them scant attention, for she had concentrated on one pur-
pose, uprooting the Colonel, and she was not yet confident
of success. Months in advance, by order of the Brothers,
she reserved passage to England for December 17, and Ol-
cott was bombarded with supernatural messages, letters,
postscripts, memoranda written into his diary in red and
blue pencil, reiterating that his fate to all eternity depended
upon his being ready to sail on the appointed date. Their
similarity to the old Gerry Brown messages did not seem
to occur to Olcott.

The financing of this expedition has never been ex-
plained. Passage for four adults, second class, New York to
Bombay via England, with stopovers and incidentals must
have cost about $1,500. Add to this a year’s living expenses
for four, plus the overhead of their Theosophical magazine
before it began to show a profit. Olcott would scarcely have
tried to borrow from his wife’s family, as Serapis suggested.
A bequest from the Baron de Palm is the most probable
explanation. After the auction of their Lamasery furnish-
ings, H.P.B. wrote in Olcott’s diary a cryptic message: “All
our things went for a song as they say in America . . .
Everything gone; Baron de Palm, adieu.” The Baron had
been dead nearly four years, yet it was to him and not to
Wilder or General Lippitt or Sotheran, that Madame bade
farewell.

All down the years, wherever H.P.B. found herself, she
soon had several Colonels and Generals in her train. One
of the habitues of the Lamasery had been Major General
Abner W. Doubleday, U. S. Army, retired, who had a dis-
tinguished war record, and was besides the inventor of the
modem American game of baseball. He now permitted her
to use his name as President of the American section of the
Theosophical Society, for she was resolved to keep the So-
ciety in existence, if only on paper, to serve as a unit in an
international organization.

In December, after a series of farewell parties, Madame

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hired an auctioneer to dispose of the Lamasery, the dusty
curios and properties that had helped to make her famous.
She had shipped her books by freight, and Miss Bates had
been sent ahead with the trunks, leaving H.P.B. and her
men to follow unencumbered. But when it came to parting
with the cuckoo clock, the stuffed owl, the serpent, all her
secret props, Madame’s courage failed, and the pile of lug-
gage mounted steadily higher. They sorted and packed until
four in the morning on the day of the auction and had
scarcely fallen asleep when the maid was pounding on the
back door. H.P.B. rushed off in the rain to meet an Adept
at the Battery, very secret, could not talk about it, but it
gave her an excuse to miss the auction.

A journalist friend wrote a pathetic little piece in the
New York Herald about the auctioneer’s red flag drooping
forlornly in the rain at the Lamasery door while they tore
to pieces “one of the best known and most remarkable
places of social resort in New York city.” These newspaper
reporters sounded a note of genuine sadness as they waved
bon voyage, but it was mixed with honest bafflement. A
New York Times man wrote that two years of closest study
by a trained reporter had failed to convince him that Mad-
ame was either a self-deluded fraud or that her seeing pow-
ers were genuine. “All sober-minded people will deny that
she wrought miracles and 'yet scores will swear that she
did.” 6

At last the auction was over, and everything was gone.
Only the ugly brass chandelier remained and its flickering
gas lights, which had so often been turned low for weird
and ghostly effects. It had witnessed many strange scenes,
miracles, marvels, tantrums. Whimsically, H.P.B. had ad-
mitted it to partnership, expanding the Theosophical
Twins to the Theosophical Trinity, and it figured on De-
cember 17, 1878, in the final entry in Olcott’s diary before
leaving America: “At near midnight H.S.O. and H.P.B.

6 New York Times, January 2, 1885.

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took leave of the chandelier and drove off in a carriage to
the steamer.”

3. FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

(1878-9)

It was farewell to America forever. Madame Blavatsky’s rea-
sons for leaving this country were as confused as the mo-
tives that had brought her here— and very similar. They
were an itching foot and an inability to face humiliation—
in this case, the attacks in D. D. Home’s new book. As yet
she made no pretensions to special powers or relations with
supernatural beings; such claims were afterthoughts writ-
ten into scrapbooks and inspired memoirs in later years.
Eager as she was to impress the Swami, she said nothing to
him about any residence in Tibet or about her Masters; she
claimed only a knowledge of such scraps of occultism as
she had picked up in childhood from wandering Siberian
shamans, probably some simple conjuring tricks.

The choice of India may have been partly due to the cir-
cumstance of Colonel Olcott’s correspondence with Moolji
Thackersey, but it also clarifies Madame’s state of mind. At
this time she accepted the mysterious-East legends and the
miraculous powers of Indian yogis as credulously as the
rest of the world; secretly she was hoping to gain the con-
fidence of some real Hindu adepts, learn their secrets, and
use them to improve her own amateurish legerdemain for
the greater glory of her Theosophical Society. As a contrib-
utory motive, she wanted to isolate Colonel Olcott from
his family and associates, to insure against his deserting her
in a moment of disillusionment or rebellion. Boston was
not far enough away. India was better. Most of all, she
craved this new adventure with the intensity of a lifetime’s
habit of running away from things. Her years of footloose
wandering called her to escape once more from the disap-
pointments of today into a magical tomorrow where any-
thing may happen. And yet, through all the hectic weeks

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of preparation, she struggled against a choking fear. Age
was creeping on. She could not shut out the haunting ques-
tion: If this fails, what next? *

Madame’s steamer was, to her despair, held up from mid-
night until the following noon by the tides of the lower bay.
So many things could happen: Mrs. Olcott might come
over the side with a legal summons to detain her eloping
spouse; the Colonel might break down at the last minute
and refuse to desert his three sons. H.P.B. shut herself in
her stateroom, trembling and sweating in uncontrollable
fear; almost apologetic for once, she told Olcott that “the
body is difficult to manage.” After an eternity of waiting,
on December 18, 1878, the pilot took them across Sandy
Hook and they were off.

Although the journey was more expensive by way of Eng-
land, H.P.B. wanted to visit London. It may be the repres-
sion of the English temperament that makes Englishmen
especially susceptible to spiritualism and Theosophy. No
other country has produced a comparable group of devotees
among the intellectuals, titles, and socialites, or can match
such names as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Stainton Moses, and Annie Besant. Before leaving for dis-
tant India, H.P.B. wanted to arouse the personal interest
of the London branch of the Theosophical Society, which
had formally joined the parent organization in New York
the preceding year. An English group of the right sort be-
hind her would be particularly useful in India.

In spite of her attacks on the vicious practices of me-
diums, H.P.B. and the Colonel were guests in London of
an American medium, Mrs. Mary Hollis Billing, late of
New York City and favorably known on both sides of the
ocean for the sprightly messages conveyed by her control.
Ski. H.P.B’s first objective was to impress C. C. Massey,
President of the English branch. Mr. Massey, who was a
handsome young barrister, a university man of good family,
and an active spiritualist, was invited to dinner at the home

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of Mb. Billing. At an appropriate moment the conversa-
tion turned to tea-drinking, and H.P.B. nonchalantly “ma-
terialized” a Japanese teapot from under the table. Massey
was mildly impressed.

This was a mere beginning. Madame dominated the eve-
ning, eyes shining, beautiful hands in constant motion,
rolling cigarettes, snubbing them out, making ineffable ges-
tures. She told them in confidence that the Arya Samaj was
vastly more than a social reform organization: reform was a
blind to conceal its secret purpose. The Swami Dayanand,
the greatest Adept in all the world, was to be her guru
(teacher). He had sent for her and was going to reveal the
secrets of occultism. Through her he might consent to
teach others in the Western world who proved eligible for
initiation. As Massey was leaving, H.P.B. told him to put
his hand in his overcoat pocket. He brought out an ornately
carved sandalwood cardcase; opening it, he found the auto-
graph of Hurrychund Chintamon, President of the Bombay
branch of the Arya Samaj. Not only the Swami, but even
his chelas had the power to perform miracles; Hurrychund
had materialized this friendly greeting across the ocean.
This time Massey was fascinated.

The human need to believe in the supernatural is evi-
denced by the universal folklore of fairies, goblins, and
ghosts. Even today in our comic strips, epitome of popular
appeal. Superman is a materialistic version of H.P.B’s Ma-
hatmas, using the same exaggerated faculties, X-ray eyes,
and supernormal speed and strength. All children and prim-
itives believe in magic, a tendency that is repressed by our
civilization. The amazing appeal of H.P.B. lay in her plau-
sibly confirming those childhood wishes, which most of
us have learned to conceal and forget. Massey began the
evening in a cautious mood. By midnight he had abandoned
himself with almost sensuous delight to a trusting accept-
ance of her bewitching fantasies. She had an important ad-
vantage in dealing with a man like Massey: he had implicit

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confidence in her good faith. It was impossible to imagine
a woman with her frank, fearless gaze and noble sentiments
stooping to the vulgar tricks of charlatans. Massey was a
Victorian gentleman, and he took it for granted that he and
she lived by the same code.

This London visit in early January 1879 witnessed a new
departure in H.P.B’s use of phenomena. She had cautiously
limited most of her earlier efforts to small select groups on
her own premises. She now undertook to exploit the mysti-
fication appeal on a progressive scale that would set the
whole world talking. A bewildering succession of marvels
ensued. Olcott and Wimbridge walking down the street in
a fog (!) were told on their return home that they had
passed an Egyptian Brother on his way to see H.P.B.; the
two men had visited Mme Tussaud’s Wax Works, where,
under the left foot of figure 158, as instructed by H.P.B.,
they found a cryptic message from another Egyptian
Brother. Mrs. Billing and Ski were docile confederates, cor-
roborating anything and everything. H.P.B. shrewdly
judged that Olcott would not relish such a part, and she
did not take him behind the scenes then or later. Instead,
he served as a fairly innocent capper, helping to convince
the skeptical by his own delight and amazement.

In spite of her apparent success, H.P.B. was still strug-
gling against an oppressive sense of evil omen. As she set
sail from Liverpool, she dispatched a frightened farewell
to her sister: Providence only knew what was in store for
her, she would write from Bombay— if she ever reached
there— timid words for one traveling on a mission for the
Brotherhood of Luxor.

Early on the morning of February 16, 1879, H.P.B. found
herself at last encircled by the magnificent panorama of
Bombay harbor: mysterious Elephanta, the handsome bun-
galows and flower gardens and strips of green of Malabar
Hill, and, close at hand, the pseudoclassic formality of the
Apollo Bunder, the British entrance to India. The wel-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

come was disappointing. Olcott’s old acquaintance, Moolji
Thackersey, and two friends boarded the steamer to greet
them, but the Arya Samaj was notably absent. The Swami
Dayanand was touring northern India. The President of
the Bombay branch, Hurrychund Chintamon, whose card-
case Massey had found in his pocket, was also missing.

Thriftily seeking to avoid the expense of hotel bills for
his party of four, Olcott had commissioned Hurrychund
to rent a modest house and have a staff of servants await-
ing their arrival. In his absence there was no way of know-
ing what arrangements he had made. Frustrated, the Colo-
nel’s party longed for some word or sign, but H.P.B’s
adepts, who read minds half way round the world, offered
no assistance. The best they could do was to dispatch an
ordinary coolie on his two legs with a chit to Hurrychund’s
address on the far side of Bombay. The coolie departed,
and they stood in the hot sun, very forlorn. An apologetic
Hurrychund finally appeared. He had been late, an Indian
custom, and had missed the bunder boat, which carried
welcoming parties to the steamer. Taking the next one, he
passed the Theosophists coming in, and they had to wait
while Hurrychund’s boat carried him out to the steamer
and back. The contretemps seemed incongruous for a near-
Adept who could slip a gift into a dinner guest's pocket with
perfect timing at a distance of three thousand miles.

H.P.B. had been around enough to know that the
Swami’s absence and their casual reception were not mere
accidents. Imperialism exacted from the India of the 1870’s
an obsequious attentiveness to white prestige. H.P.B. ar-
rived without the proper credentials, and India was aware
of the fact. She met her host affably enough. After all, she
had reached India, Mother of Mysteries. A new field opened
out, offering unlimited opportunity to anyone clever enough
to exploit it. She smiled tolerantly at Olcott when, as he
stepped ashore, he solemnly knelt and kissed the sacred soil
of Mother India.

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CHAPTER IX

WEST GOES EAST

( I $7 9 )

NEARLY four centuries after Ponce de Leon had sailed
from the old world to the new, searching for the secret of
eternal youth, Madame Blavatsky sailed from the new
world to the old in pursuit of the secrets of occultism. Both
were disappointed in their quest.

Guided by Hurrychund, H.P.B. and her party were
loaded into tongas and driven across town, past the crowded
bazaars into the swarming Hindu quarter of the city. H.P.B.
claimed to have seen it all before, but Olcott, the impres-
sionable Yankee, and Wimbridge, the artist, always remem-
bered that first drive from the office buildings and stores of
downtown Bombay into the heart of the gorgeous East. A
fretwork of carved balconies and sagging wooden sunhoods
enclosed as in a frame the riotous color of the swarming
streets. Importantly, Hurrychund ushered the party, fol-
lowed by a line of coolies loaded with luggage, through a
forlorn compound into an untidy, scantily furnished house.
They learned later that it was his own house, hastily va-
cated for their benefit. It had no running water, no plumb-
ing, no kitchen stove, none of the conveniences the West

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takes for granted, but H.P.B. cheerfully accepted this
plunge into the simple life.

The newcomers were welcomed on the evening of Feb-
ruary 17, 1879, at a reception in Hurrychund’s photographic
studio next door. Garlands were hung about their necks,
they were sprinkled with rose water, and an address of wel-
come inscribed upon a scroll was read aloud and presented
to them. The welcome continued for a week. They wit-
nessed the rites celebrating the anniversary of Shivaratri in
the caves of Elephanta across the harbor. They attended a
performance in their honor of the Hindu drama Sitaram
at the Elphinstone Theatre. They were seated in a box, gar-
landed with jasmine and roses, and served rich, sticky
sweets. When they rose to leave, the performance stopped
while Hurrychund read an address of welcome from the
stage.

It was all very idyllic until Hurrychund presented his bill.
In addition to an exorbitant rental, he had charged them
for his cablegram of greeting, for the three hundred chairs
and the refreshments used at the welcoming reception in
his studio, for every expense attending their arrival. This
was especially chilling in view of H.P.B’s generous gesture:
before leaving New York she had forwarded to Hurrychund
a gift of two hundred dollars presented on behalf of the
members of the Theosophical Society in America to their
brethren of the Arya Samaj in Bombay. At the first meeting
of the Samaj after their arrival, Madame Blavatsky, ques-
tioning Hurrychund, exposed the fact that he had pocketed
the money and failed to report its receipt to anyone. It was
a very stormy session.

The great Swami about whom H.P.B. had committed
herself so recklessly was also a source of embarrassment.
When, after several months, H.P.B. realized that he, was
not coming to Bombay to offer even a belated welcome,
she hastily decided to move the mountain to Mohammed.
Learning that he would be in Saharanpur toward the end

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of April, she planned an itinerary of the Karli caves and the
Taj Mahal timed to bring her to Saharanpur at the same
time. She took with her the Colonel, his friend Moolji
Thackersey, and her personal servant, Babula.

On those early journeys H.P.B. made no secret of her
eager search for Hindu holy men, adepts who would teach
her how to produce supernatural phenomena. Artlessly and
persistently, she and Olcott asked to be directed to yogis
skilled in wonder-working. They were surprised and disap-
pointed when the sannyasis disdained their advances and
professed ignorance of other wonder-workers. Only the
jugglers and snake charmers seemed flattered and respon-
sive to their interest. On the eve of her journey to meet the
Swami, H.P.B. began a series of adventures in magic rang-
ing from simple letters from the Brothers to elaborate illu-
sions in which an entire house and compound seemed to
disappear from its site. The phenomena continued through-
out the trip: in the Caves ghostly voices startled them with
warnings; unknown messengers handed them notes, bou-
quets, a lacquered box of pan sopari (betel leaf and spices,
an Indian delicacy). Instead of the dried autumn leaves and
stuffed animals of the Lamasery, H.P.B. found herself in a
world of exotic settings with props scattered all over the
landscape, and she responded prodigally. For years Olcott
considered this first trip of March-April 1879 proof of his
partner’s powers, assuming that she had not had time to
arrange for confederates so soon after their arrival. But in
the end he learned that with the connivance of his friend
Thackersey, H.P.B. had secretly engaged an extra servant,
Baburao, who accompanied them on the journey, but kept
out of his sight.

On their arrival at Saharanpur, H.P.B. avoided questions
of precedence and white prerogatives versus Hindu holiness
by dispatching Olcott immediately to pay his respects. An
hour later the Swami returned the compliment. H.P.B. was
staying in a dak bungalow, a wayside shelter for travelers

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that takes the place of a village inn in upcountry India. She
had long anticipated this meeting and knew just what she
wanted to discuss: magic, phenomena, yogis, and how much
power they really had. The Swami, after stating his views
on God and nirvana, soon reverted to his main theme, Back-
to-the-Vedas, and his plans for restoring India to the In-
dians through a revival of their ancient culture. It was
H.P.B’s first meeting with one of the great Indian ascetics,
and she watched him closely. She was handicapped by his
not speaking English; her technique suffered at the hands
of an interpreter, and she was disappointed by the meeting.
It was apparent that the Swami did not take her too seri-
ously, and the conversation had been worlds away from the
esoteric secrets she had hoped to discuss. After her advance
notices it was a sad anti-climax.

Perhaps by way of compensation, Olcott, crossing the
plains of Rajputana on his way home, received an impor-
tant recognition by the Brothers. At the end of a day’s jour-
ney the two Founders had stopped in the dak bungalow of
the village of Bhurtpur. They were sitting on the veranda
in the twilight when an old Hindu came around the corner
of the bungalow, salaamed to Olcott, and handed him a
chit. Written in the pompous style supposedly affected by
divinities, the letter, which was signed by the Master
Morya, sought to reassure Olcott by telling him that he
was on the right path and that the surest way to find the
Mahatmas was through faithful work for the Theosophical
Society.

In the end Olcott questioned the authenticity of most
of the numerous messages that he had received from the
hierarchy, but he cherished this letter, his first recognition
after making the great plunge, and he wrote in his last years
that “even though the letter had been a false one, it has
proved a blessing and a perpetual comfort in times of trou-
ble .” 1 H.P.B’s faults were so flashy and picturesque that
1 Olcott: O.D.L., 11,71.

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WEST GOES EAST

they formed a glittering screen, overshadowing her real
power and ability. The capacity to write and speak words
that bring comfort to aching hearts, words to which men
cling for hope, is a rare gift, and incongruous as it may seem,
it was one source of H.P.B’s power.

Olcott’s brief honeymoon with the Mahatmas was fol-
lowed by an extremely painful period. He thought he had
suffered in tearing from his heart the ties that bound him
to home and family. But during those early months in In-
dia he experienced anguish exceeding anything he had ever
known. He could have accepted H.P.B’s alibis in half a
dozen -cases, but nothing seemed to work out. Bemused
though he was, the Colonel must have noted the irony of
the fall of Hurrychund from a darling of the gods to a petty
swindler who gouged them on the rent and pocketed their
rupees. And how explain the contrast between the Swami
Dayanand, glittering Master of All Mysteries as H.P.B. had
drawn him on that expansive evening at Mrs. Billing’s
dinner party, and the austere patriot and reformer of Sa-
haranpur? Olcott grappled with soul-shaking doubts in an
extremity of confusion, much as our ancestors used to ago-
nize over the comparative merits of salvation by faith and
by works.

Was this fascinating woman the agent of supernatural
powers or was she an impostor? With the beginning of hot
weather, virtually all the other Europeans had escaped to
the hill stations. Many times in the heat and rain and steam-
ing smells, Olcott thought back regretfully to New York
City, his sons, his work, his friends, a frosted mint julep at
the Lotos Club. With characteristic frankness he told
H.P.B. that their Indian expedition had been the “act of
lunatics” and that they had an excellent chance of starving
to death.

Madame was in no mood for such talk. She herself was
too frightened. She too could see this party of four with
their small cash reserve melting away and not a practical

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

plan for the future among them. Like a mother who calls
on Dad to administer the spankings, H.P.B. used her hier-
archy to punish the fainthearted.

The Master Morya addressed the Colonel with an icy
severity that must have made his teeth chatter even in Bom-
bay. Miss Bates and Mr. Wimbridge might justifiably com-
plain: they were outsiders who had been induced to come
along. But the Colonel had no right to such regrets. He had
been a prime mover in promoting the expedition! It should
be enough for him to know that they were here on the di-
rect orders of our beloved Lord and Chief, the Maha Sahib,
whom he had formerly called Serapis. The letter ended as
abruptly as it began, tossing him an unpleasant taunt about
his family in America. In later letters the Master warned
him even more angrily that he was alienating the woman
to whom he owed everything and upon whom all hope of
further progress in occultism depended. “Perish the
thought rather than be ungrateful to H.P.B.” 2

On the surface the Founders kept themselves occupied.
They had moved on March 7, 1879, into a bungalow on
Girgaum Back Road, for which they paid less than half the
rental charged by Hurrychund. H.P.B. handed over the
housekeeping and supervision of the numerous Indian serv-
ants to Miss Bates. Wimbridge made himself useful and
helped with the Indian callers, members of the Arya Samaj
who were attracted by the novelty of meeting respectable
Europeans on terms of equality, and were also surprised and
flattered by H.P.B’s outspoken admiration for their ancient
civilization.

Madame was genuine in her hospitality. The Eastern
strain in her blood (she used to call herself half Oriental)
gave her a natural interest in Asiatic culture. She also had
practical considerations in mind: if she expected to build
her Society into a source of income she must cultivate a
constituency. Brief residence in India had given her an in-

2 Letters M.W., II, 84.

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WEST GOES EAST

sight into the low level of Indian morale and had suggested
her opportunity. It was less than twenty years since the
Mutiny, and the British Raj was still jumpy; many repres-
sive measures continued in force and the Indians were thor-
oughly intimidated. Madame had anticipated that a western
woman championing Hindu culture would make a sensa-
tion and that the flattered Hindus would flock to her sup-
port. On reaching India, however, she realized that its pop-
ulation of three hundred million was not, for her purposes,
as large as it sounded. The masses of Indian peasants were
illiterate and lived on one meal a day. Even the wages of
the small white-collar class were too low to permit them to
offer financial support for a nonessential like Theosophy.
Her only hope was to cultivate the rajahs and the few
wealthy Indians.

Almost at once she secured two promising disciples:
Prince Harisinghi Rupsinghji of Bhavnagar, who made
many generous gifts through the years; and Damodar K.
Mavalankar, impressionable, mystical son of wealthy Brah-
mins. Damodar’s father, Keshava, also an early member of
the Society, became alarmed by the scale of his son’s gifts
to H.P.B., and decided that she was a charlatan out for the
money. Although he threatened to disinherit his son, he
was unable to interfere with the boy’s intense devotion to
his new guru.

Those early months in India were a bleak time for the
Founders. The Colonel had secured agencies for several
American exporting firms and tried to organize a business,
shipping to the States bundles of tiger skins, carved ivory,
and curios, and trying to dispose of American manufactured
articles such as alarm clocks. Breaking into the business
without backing, connections, or experience, he met little
success. On the Fourth of July 1879, as the Colonel patri-
otically noted, the Founders decided to risk their small re-
maining capital on a magazine with H.P.B. as editor and the
Colonel as business manager. It was an immediate success.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

The first number appeared on September 30, the edition of
four hundred copies was sold out in a few days. Each month
they cautiously increased their printing order. After only
four months they turned the corner, and the magazine be-
gan to show a profit, becoming a steady money-maker. A
chatty, intimate note of congratulations from the Master
Morya to Olcott indicated the gratification of the Mahat-
mas. It was balm to Olcott’s wounds and made him very
happy. Even in far-away Tibet the Masters could relax on
hearing the reassuring tinkle of the silver rupees.

2. LION TAMER

(1880)

“Hurrah for the heathen Hindu!” exclaimed H.P.B. on re-
ceiving the Swami Dayanand’s assent to the amalgamation
of Theosophists and Arya Samaj. She arrived in India still
hurrahing for the Hindus, but with a chip on her shoulder
for the British. Those were the palmy days of imperialism,
and it was a strong brew. The majority of British civil serv-
ice and army officials were incorruptible, competent, hard-
working administrators. On the human side, however, they
held themselves aloof with an arrogance that was peculiarly
insulting. No one who has known the charming people of
England on their native heath can imagine, without experi-
encing it, the insidious effect of the white man’s burden.

Confronting Imperial India with an arrogance of her
own, Madame Blavatsky did not bother her head about
white authority. She was a law unto herself. If she liked a
thing, good; if not, to Hades with it! Perversely she ignored
and affronted the all-powerful British community. She
lived in the Hindu quarter, neglected to leave cards at Gov-
ernment House, deliberately attacked cherished traditions.
She surpassed her New York record of getting off on the
wrong foot.

Interviewed by the Bombay press on her arrival, she de-

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WEST GOES EAST

fied two basic taboos, managing to tread on all the most
important white toes in India before she was fairly ashore.
Her smouldering antagonism to Christianity had been
fanned into flame by the sanctimonious piety of a group of
missionaries on shipboard. While extolling the merits of
Hindu culture to the ship-news men, she could not resist
taking a slap at Christianity and the missionaries, receiving
some sour repartee from the missionary press in return.
Within three months, she threatened to sue the Presby-
terian Marathi Mission for libel. The missionary editor apol-
ogized and lost the first round, but he failed to turn the
other cheek. A few years later the missionaries took full
revenge.

Madame’s second faux pas was even more serious. She
had made her entrance declaiming the Hindu classics call-
ing upon Indians to take pride in their past and revive their
ancient culture. The English community did not like it;
they did not know what she was talking about, but it did
not sound right. With the exception of occasional scholars
in their ranks, the average British administrators live in
India, ignorant of and indifferent to everything in the coun-
try except their specific job and British associates. English-
women, having no public jobs, intensify this spirit. The wife
of an English colonel being initiated into the Theosophical
Society met Damodar and other Hindu chelas and was
amazed by their intelligence, though most of them were
college graduates. She told H.P.B. that she had lived in the
country for eighteen years and had never before spoken to
any Indian except her servants and tradesmen. England in
India dismissed H.P.B’s genuine interest in Hinduism as
cheap demagogy.

The C. I. D. (Criminal Investigation Department, cor-
responding to our F. B. I.) took a very different attitude,
giving H.P.B. serious consideration. This much was routine;
every newcomer to India is quietly investigated, and in case
of doubt authority takes appropriate action. H.P.B. was

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

listed as a suspicious person. On her trip to the Karli caves
she discovered that detectives were following her. She flew
at them on station platforms, shouting taunts and making
scenes. Back in Bombay, Colonel Olcott made formal pro-
test, but in vain; the police refused to call off their shadows.
H.P.B’s apparently fantastic threat against herself of three
years earlier had come true. She was under surveillance as a
Russian spy.

H.PJB’s blundering lack of finesse might well have cost
her deportation, instead of which Fate played into her hand
—or, as she would say, the Mahatmas intervened. During
her first fortnight in India she heard from a top-rank jour-
nalist, A. P. Sinnett, editor of the Allahabad Pioneer, the
most important English paper in India, unofficially ac-
cepted as spokesman for the Raj. Sinnett, who had dabbled
in spiritualism in London, had still another reaction to
H.P.B’s blustering announcement of her arrival. He gave
her a friendly notice in the Pioneer and wrote inviting her
to notify him of any interesting developments. He became
her most important convert in India. Through him she
could reach practically anyone right up to the Viceroy; she
had won at the outset entree to the “pukka sahibs ”

In December 1879, at the end of their first year in India,
the Founders visited the Sinnetts in Allahabad. H.P.B. de-
fensively warned them that she was “a rough old hippo-
potamus of a woman,” and listed her bad habits as was her
wont. Like the Corsons, the Sinnetts were unprepared for
the actual H.P.B. She joined her correct host and hostess in
the morning wearing a dingy red dressing gown, spotted
and greasy, her fingers yellow with nicotine. When an-
noyed, she turned on Olcott with noisy tirades, regardless
of who was present, ripping out her phrases with Eliza-
bethan unconcern, using words, shuddered Sinnett “that
we should all have preferred her not to make use of.”

The Sinnetts could overlook H.P.B’s queer clothes and
untidy habits, but her tantrums and billingsgate gave them

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WEST GOES EAST

gooseflesh. And yet H.P.B. had something that Sinnett su-
premely wanted. Susceptibility to the lure of occultism tran-
scends practical considerations. It is like the enviable, piti-
ful blindness of young love. In spite of embarrassing
moments, the visit was far from a failure, as was proved by an
invitation to spend most of the following hot weather with
the Sinnetts at Simla, summer capital of the government of
India and of its social life. Campaigns for personal advance-
ment, political and financial intrigues, international spy
plots, innocent and less innocent flirtations, all come to
maturity on Simla’s dizzy heights.

On a September morning of 1880, Madame and the
Colonel clambered out of the northbound Mail at Umballa
(remember Kim?), nearest rail point to Simla. Importantly,
Madame’s bearer, Babula, supervised half a dozen coolies
transferring the elaborate luggage of travelling sahibs in
the Orient: tin trunks— to keep out ants— tiffin basket, bot-
tled soda water, bedding rolls, all disappeared into the
boot of a dak-gharry. Eastern equivalent of a stage coach.
H.P.B. was excited, talking, gesturing, laughing noisily. She
had just come from another encounter with Swami Daya-
nand.

The Swami was absorbed in his great reform movement,
which was progressing favorably. H.P.B. had been forced
to make all the advances, and she found the Swami cour-
teous but noncommittal. Even Olcott noticed his chilly
concentration as he watched Madame demonstrate her
phenomena. The Swami probably saw more than she was
aware. Anticipating possible embarrassment, he handled
her most discreetly, inviting the entire membership of the
local Arya Samaj to attend this meeting, which H.P.B. had
requested on her way to Simla. Although confidences were
thus precluded, she persisted in cross-questioning the
Swami about supernormal phenomena, and the power of
adepts; what, specifically could they do, how did they de-
velop power, what did he think of the Yoga discipline? The

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Swami, absorbed in his reforms, had little interest in the
claptrap of phenomena, but he replied carefully. There
were three kinds of phenomena: the lowest, depending on
sleight of hand, he called tamasha, meaning mere show or
pretense; a second group was helped along by chemical or
mechanical devices; only a small third group was genuine,
produced by the occult power of man. The Swami empha-
sized the lifetime of strict discipline required in order to
develop occult power: in addition to observing the well-
known ascetic rules of diet, chastity, and meditation, five
human weaknesses must be subjugated: ignorance, egotism,
sensual passion, selfishness, and fear of death. Blind absorp-
tion in her own purposes left H.P.B. unabashed by her un-
fitness to meet such standards.

Supporting his partner’s effort to pin the Swami down,
the Colonel described some of Madame’s recent manifes-
tations: causing a shower of roses to fall in the palace of the
Maharajah of Benares, ringing invisible bells, diminishing
the flame of a lamp to the vanishing point and bringing it
up again without touching the lamp. How would the Swami
classify such phenomena? The Swami answered cautiously:
these were phenomena of Yoga, though they might be imi-
tated by tricksters and then would be mere tamasha . 3 It was
not a cordial reply, but at least he had not denounced her,
and she could make her own interpretation.

The Founders resumed their journey. Leaning back on
the dak-gharry cushions, they discussed the Swami as they
climbed the foothills of the Himalayas through the fra-
grant darkness. H.P.B. was careful not to let the Colonel
see her disappointment. In the intimacy of the tropical
night under oath of secrecy, she told him that he had been
talking face to face with one of the Elect of the Universe.
He was no ordinary Swami; as a matter of fact, one of her
Masters had condescended to occupy the Hindu’s body.
The Swami Dayanand was one of the Mahatmas! So secret

8 Olcott: O.D.L., II, 222.

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WEST GOES EAST

was her own relationship with him that they m aintain ed
the appearance of casual acquaintances even before their
chelas; only when they were alone together could they un-
mask. The Colonel listened in an ecstasy with the eager,
uncritical faith of a child. Hours such as this satisfied some
overpowering craving in the man, and compensated for all
that he had sacrificed, for his anomalous position, for the
constant humiliation he must endure.

Pausing on their climb of 7,000 feet for a five-hour rest at
Kalka, they changed from the dak-gharry to tongas, low-
hung, two wheeled carts. All day they zigzagged, passing an
endless line of traffic headed down the mountain for the
burning plains they had just quitted, bullock carts, camel
caravans, government elephants, strings of polo ponies led
by Mohammedan horse traders. Overhead, monkeys chat-
tered in the deodars. They saw the flashing green and scarlet
of parrot’s wings, heard the clang of tonga horns; now and
again as they rounded a sharp spur they saw a magnificent
vista of the plains through the steaming haze of hot-weather
India. At the outskirts of the city one of the Sinnett serv-
ants met them, impeccably turned out in white dhoti and
three-quarter-length white coat with scarlet turban and
cummerbund. Deferentially he supervised their transfer
from the cramped tongas to jampans, sedan chairs swing-
ing from long poles carried on the shoulder of four coolies.

After dinner they stood on the veranda looking out over
magical Simla. The recitative of the bazaars floated up the
hillside past them, accented by the syncopation of Oriental
drums and triangle, their haunting 1-2-3 rhythm drifting
to them from across distant ravines. Lights were everywhere,
the sky blazing with stars, twinkling torches in the bazaars
and along the winding roads. Even H.P.B. was moved.
Simla stirred her deeply. It was refreshing to return to the
easy give and take, the tonic self-confidence of her kind. In
spite of having ostracized herself, she wanted now to be
re-established among her own sort of people. The Sinnetts

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

sensed her mood; however uncouth, the fact that she was
a woman of position and breeding reassured them. After her
explosions they shuddered and remembered that her grand-
mother had been a princess.

The Russian spy charges were very much on Sinnett’s
mind, for H.P.B. had told him all her troubles during her
Allahabad visit, and he knew the real risk of her situation.
On her very first morning in Simla, September 8, 1880, Sin-
nett cornered the Old Lady for a serious talk while she was
in a good mood. He begged her to make this visit a real
holiday. It was her first break for eighteen months; she
owed it to herself to forget Theosophy, phenomena, and
the spy charges and relax. It would be the best way to dis-
arm suspicion and convince the Raj that she was harmless. 4

During the month that Sinnett waited before beginning
action, he had the Founders meet the right people, officials,
socialites, and a few literati like Mr. Kipling whose son
Rudyard had gone back to school in England. Sinnett had
a newspaper man’s awareness that Simla should be ripe, if
gently handled, for Madame’s picking. The previous Vice-
roy, Lord Lytton, was a son of Bulwer Lytton, the novelist
who had built many of his plots on mystery and magic.
Simla society had read Zanoni, and was primed with dinner-
table small talk about The Dweller and Mejnour and polite
occultism.

At the end of the month Olcott addressed a letter to the
Secretary in the Foreign Department whom he and Mad-
ame had met at dinner on the previous Saturday. By way of
credentials Olcott cited the lofty purpose of the Society:
to study the religions, philosophies, and sciences of ancient
Asia with the help of native scholars and adepts. He re-
ferred to their English companions, Wimbridge and Miss
Bates. Finally he brought in his own Civil War record,
which had entitled him to a special passport and letters of
introduction from the President of the United States and

4 Ibid., II, chaps, xv, xvi.

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WEST GOES EAST

the Secretary of State. It was this last which made an im-
pression. With Sinnett in the background the detectives
were called off, but the Raj wrote Olcott that the action
was taken “in consequence of the interest expressed in you”
by the American heads of state, and they implied that Mad-
ame’s status would continue to depend upon her good be-
havior.

Caught up in Simla's gay whirl, Madame with sighs and
groans dressed in her best black satin night after night for
dinners at home and abroad. At first blase Simla was de-
lighted with the phenomena that accompanied almost every
party. No dinner was complete without an exhibition of the
Russian lady’s table-rapping and bell-ringing. She even
made noises on the bald heads of the chiefs of state, and
they seemed to like it.

For a month H.P.B. limited herself to simple parlor
tricks. It was no coincidence that on the very day after Ol-
cott received a friendly letter from the Secretary of the For-
eign Department, H.P.B. contrived her most spectacular
display so far. It required the services of a confederate— she
had held Babula in reserve all this time.

On October 3, 1880, the Sinnetts arranged a picnic. They
were joined at the last moment by an English judge, who
made the seventh in the party. When the servants un-
packed the tiffin baskets they found that they had brought
only six cups and saucers. In the midst of the laughter and
comment, H.P.B., after turning her great seal ring this way
and that, pointed to a certain spot and said to one of the
party, Major Henderson, Chief of the Indian Police, “Please
dig here.” Picking up a table knife, the Major dug into the
hillock and presently unearthed an extra cup and saucer
of the same pattern as those in the tiffin basket. The ma-
terialization was received at first with awed delight. After
luncheon, however, the Major and the Judge examined the
magic spot and found indications that the china might have
been deftly poked into the hillock from the far side. In

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

order to clear the matter up, they challenged H.P.B. to re-
peat the phenomenon under test conditions. She stormily
refused and made a scene, berating the men roundly for
insulting her by doubting her word. The picnic party went
home in a chastened mood. (See Appendix F, page 323.)

But the day was not over. They were dining that night at
the home of Allen O. Hume, one of the most distinguished
and influential men to come under H.P.B’s influence. He
was the son of Joseph Hume, the fearless reformer who for
thirty years served as leader of the House of Commons.
Allen Hume, created a Companion of the Bath in recogni-
tion of distinguished service during the Mutiny, had just
ended nine years in office as Secretary to the Government
for the Departments of Agriculture, Revenue, and Com-
merce. An authority on ornithology, he spent $100,000 in
bringing together in his home, Rothney Castle at Simla, the
finest collection and library in the world on his special sub-
ject, Asiatic birds. He was also active in promoting Indian
self-government and his memory is revered today through-
out India as the Father of the Indian National Congress.

On the evening of the miracle-working October third,
the Humes were entertaining a dozen guests. At the dinner
table Colonel Olcott related the story of the picnic and the
cup and saucer, omitting of course the unhappy ending. A
discussion of occult phenomena followed. Madame asked
Mrs. Hume if there was anything she would particularly
like to have, and Mrs. Hume told of losing an old-fashioned
brooch set with pearls, with a lock of hair in the back. After
dinner, under H.P.B’s direction, the men fumbled around
in a star-shaped flower bed until they found a little packet
wrapped in cigarette papers. It was Mrs. Hume’s brooch. 5

Simla was electrified. Momentarily H.P.B. had tamed the
British lion. Over the women’s tea-cups, over the men’s
chota pegs, everywhere Madame Blavatsky was discussed.
Olcott’s discreet account of the cup and saucer materializa-
® A. P. Sinnett: Occult World , 46-61.

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WEST GOES EAST

tion was supplemented by Major Henderson’s story, which
questioned H.P.B’s good faith. You chose the version you
liked. But when it came to the brooch, that was total tri-
umph, inexplicable, a miracle!

However, the incident had a damaging sequel. Originally
Mrs. Hume had broken the brooch; her daughter gave it
to a man friend who was going to Bombay and asked him
to take it to a jeweler to be repaired. Instead, he pawned it.
The young man knew Madame Blavatsky and was her
guest. She secured the ticket, redeemed the brooch and had
it mended. The Bombay jeweler, Hormuji Seervai, was
found, and testified that he did the work for Madame. Be-
fore the end of the month this story was published in The
Bombay Gazette and other papers. Yet H.P.B. was able to
satisfy Sinnett that her phenomenon had been genuine ! 6
It was by accepting H.P.B’s plausible expurgations that Sin-
nett rendered her a great service. He had no sense of tam-
pering with the facts, for he was yielding to subtle influ-
ences: the universal impulse to improve a good story and
an overpowering emotional need to believe in Madame. Fi-
nally, because he had sponsored her, his reflected glory de-
pended upon hers.

Malicious gossip swirled about Madame. She was a
witch; she was possessed by the devil. If only, Sinnett had
urged, H.P.B. would take a holiday from her black arts in
sophisticated Simla, for too often her tricks were obvious
or missed fire. Madame used to insist that she was primarily
interested in the metaphysics of Theosophy and had been
driven to the use of phenomena by the insatiable appetite
of her followers. But it was frequently in defiance of her
advisers that she insisted on remaining in the spotlight with
her manifestations. Sinnett’s efforts to protect her proved
that he appreciated her fallibility. At the same time his
knowledge strangely failed to interfere with his belief that
she offered him a unique opportunity to evade the barriers

e J. N. Farquhar: Modem Religious Movements in India, p. 229.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

of mortality and come in contact with the supreme powers
of the universe.

In spite of jealousy of the Colonel, Sinnett buttonholed
him one day for a confidential chat. They were bound in
the brotherhood of two men trying to handle a difficult
woman. To escape from H.P.B., who had an uncanny way
of interrupting them at the wrong moment, they rode down
the Mall to the Club. Sinnett told Olcott frankly that he
was in despair. He deplored H.P.B’s inaptitude for her
great task; how could the Masters have selected as their
sole representative in this world a person so conspicuously
lacking in self control, in presentable appearance, in ordi-
nary good manners— all qualities necessary to inspire the
confidence of the important people whom Sinnett hoped
to interest. With one blast of billingsgate she would de-
stroy in three minutes a prospect on whom he had been
working for months. In short, Sinnett wanted to salvage,
before she had a chance to wreck it, this unique opportunity
which H.P.B. had stumbled over. Olcott let Sinnett talk,
and could not help feeling a secret sympathy. But he dis-
creetly kept quiet and offered no suggestions.

In another ten days Sinnett suggested a device of mag-
nificent simplicity, essentially a newspaper man’s plan. He
proposed that the Brothers deliver to H.P.B. in Simla a
copy of the London Times as published that same morning
in England. It would be an unanswerable piece of evidence.
Although H.P.B. was touchy and arbitrary about the Broth-
ers, Sinnett set his heart upon presenting this plan in per-
son. He was secretly convinced that if they could once lay
eyes upon him, they must be impressed by his eligibility to
become at least Assistant Liaison Manager for the Universe.

One day when H.P.B. was in a good humor Sinnett asked
her whether, if he wrote a letter to the Brothers about this
plan, she could and would forward it. She accepted the sug-
gestion amiably, and even agreed that he might let Hume
into the secret. So began the astral postoffice, one of the

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WEST GOES EAST

most spectacular Theosophical activities. Sinnett received
his first letter on October 18, 1880. Madame insisted, and
Theosophists believe, that she merely served as a transmit-
ter for the many letters to Sinnett and Hume from the Mas-
ters. She disposed of Sinnett’s London Times proposal with
characteristic agility. Precisely because such a test would
close the mouths of the skeptics it would not do: the masses
were incapable of assimilating the wonders that the Masters
were waiting to divulge. Only a small circle of the elite was
as yet qualified to receive them. The truth must be doled
out in small portions, giving the world time to adjust itself
to such revolutionary concepts. One of the first letters
through the postoffice was from the Master Koot Hoomi
rejecting the suggestion; this ended the matter. One does
not argue with a Mahatma.

The Simla visit wound up in a whirl with everything go-
ing blue blazes: letters from the Raj about the detectives;
letters from Sinnett and Hume for the Masters; letters
from the Masters establishing the postoffice, and over all
a pyrotechnical display of phenomena that left everyone
dazzled and blinking.

CHAPTER X

ENTER THE MAHATMAS

( 1880 — 2 )

ENTERING her second year in India, H.P.B. had still to
make some basic readjustments. She had received several
letters from Emma Cutting, the Cairo lodginghouse-keeper
who lent her money— which she had never returned. Miss
Cutting had married a French mechanic named Coulomb,
and the two, now destitute in Ceylon, had read press ac-
counts of Theosophy in Bombay. To Madame Coulomb’s
letters pressing for the return of her loan, H.P.B. replied
that she was “poor as a church mouse,” but she proposed
that the Coulombs should join her in Bombay. They arrived
in March 1880.

With the Coulombs came complications. M. Coulomb,
clever with tools and a general handyman, fitted in nicely,
for H.P.B. always needed a room remodeled or a new cabi-
net or closet. But Madame Coulomb was a problem. She
was an unattractive woman, wrinkled and witchlike, with
surly manners and furtive ways. The chelas used to surprise
her reading their letters and eavesdropping on conversations.
H.P.B. had her own reasons for wanting Madame Cou-
lomb, having taken the woman's measure in Cairo, and

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

she welcomed this strange creature as her personal friend,
letting her trespass on Miss Bates’s position as housekeeper.
In the absence of the Founders, these newcomers arrogantly
took over authority, displaying H.P.B’s written orders,
which conferred almost unlimited power. Madame Cou-
lomb was not only H.P.B’s secretary, but “you are my friend
and that is more.” She was authorized to represent H.P.B.
as Secretary of the Theosophical Society and as Editor of
The Theosophist.

Four months after the arrival of the Coulombs, on Au-
gust 5, 1880, this powder mine blew up. On the Founders’
return from a trip to Ceylon, the compound was in an up-
roar. Miss Bates charged Madame Coulomb with trying to
poison her, and vice versa. Wimbridge and all the chelas
sided with Miss Bates: if she had to go, Wimbridge would
also leave in protest. H.P.B. hesitated, fearing the possible
public reaction to her evicting this Englishwoman whom
she had brought to India. But she had to choose, and she
kept the Coulombs. She was to regret the choice. Theoso-
phists heap abuse on Madame Coulomb, and she was a
poor specimen. But the circumstances of her reaching a po-
sition in which she could betray H.P.B’s secrets are part of
her story.

In response to urgent pleas from the Sinnetts, H.P.B.
decided to abandon her defiant gesture of living in the In-
dian quarter of Bombay. While in Simla, she commissioned
Madame Coulomb to find a new home and have everything
moved in her absence. Madame Coulomb picked up a bar-
gain, an isolated bungalow, the Crow’s Nest, standing high
on the rocky slope of Breach Candy. She leased it for less
than half the normal rental because of its reputation as a
haunted house. Only once did the ghost walk. As Olcott
was dropping off to sleep one night, he felt a comer of his
chprpoy (bedframe) being lifted. With great presence of
mind he lay still and pronounced a certain Arabic “power

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

word” that H.P.B. had taught him in anticipation of such
an emergency. Instantly the charpoy settled down on its
four legs; the spook never returned.

Gradually H.P.B. was defining the boundaries that must
circumscribe every life, for even an occultist must observe
a certain routine of eating, sleeping, brushing her teeth. She
was established in a more suitable home; she had gotten rid
of that stiff-necked Englishwoman and put the more accom-
modating Coulombs in her place; the magazine was pros-
pering; Simla was a shining memory. Olcott’s place in the
picture was not quite satisfactory. His chief value was his
loyalty in spite of his having deserted his family. But she
had no respect for his opinions, and was brutally frank
about showing him the contempt that women feel for men
they can push around. She could be brutal because she had
a sovereign remedy for restoring his good humor after drag-
ging him in the dust. Like an old nurse at a carnival holding
a fretful child up to a peep show, H.P.B. made amends by
showing Olcott a white-draped figure crossing the com-
pound in the twilight, one of the Masters who had stopped
in on his way to Tibet. Or she dropped another letter of
patronizing commendation on his head. Even after her
death the disillusioned Colonel treasured those moments
when he had felt himself transfigured, lifted out of the ruck
of mankind for special service, special recognition, by the
Supreme Powers of the Universe.

A rumpus between the Founders early in 1881 cleared the
air and helped to define their division of labor. Before leav-
ing New York they had tacitly endorsed Hinduism in their
formal alliance with the Arya Samaj. It had, however, been
something of a shock to observe Hinduism close up instead
of through the lofty phrases of Emerson and Sir Edwin Ar-
nold, and to discover at first hand its impersonality and
vagueness. H.P.B. had gone sightseeing in the vast temples
half a mile square; she had learned to identify a few of the
thousands of gods; she had accepted the tropical exuberance

156

ENTER THE MAHATMAS

of a god with 16,000 wives who was the father of 180,000
sons, and of princes who wed 10,000 virgins in a single
night. She had no difficulty about these legends, for she
too had a fantastic imagination, but it was chilling to com
front the Hindu’s non-proselytizing indifference, his fiat
that you cannot become a Hindu, but must be bom one.

It was easier to transfer one’s affection to Buddhism, sub-
stituting Buddha and his precepts for Christ and his teach-
ings. Although Gautama was an Indian prince, his religion
had failed to take root in his own land, except for colonies
in Ceylon at the southern tip of the continent and in Tibet
on the northern border. Dramatizing their identification
with India, H.P.B. and Olcott visited Ceylon and, on
May 25, 1880, took pansil, a Buddhist rite that corresponds
to confirmation. This formal rejection of Christianity by
two Europeans and their public submission to Buddhist
rites flattered the Sinhalese, who overwhelmed them with
hospitality. The aged High Priest suavely invited H.P.B. to
demonstrate her magical powers. In return she was per-
mitted to witness a devil dance by professional sorcerers.

For two months the Founders toured the island, and this
time Olcott played the lead. For some reason, H.P.B. was
never able to speak in public; self-consciousness, perhaps
something of her childhood sense of inferiority, over-
whelmed her and tied her tongue. At public meetings she
always had to sit back and let Olcott do the talking. He was
prosy, but his sincerity and honest American brotherliness
redeemed his performance, and he had the advantage of his
white skin. He took his mission seriously, often speaking to
large audiences, and he adored it.

The Sinhalese clamored for another tour the next year.
H.P.B., who did not enjoy primitive modes of travel or
sitting in the background, turned the program over to Ol-
cott. She could spare him from headquarters because he had
the business end of the magazine so well organized that his
Indian assistants were able to carry on without him for long

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

periods. It was agreed that he would lecture on Buddhism
and raise money for an educational fund to establish
schools to serve as propaganda centers for Theosophy. The
Masters were consulted. They approved, dates were set, and
final arrangements accepted.

An opportunity to establish himself in a separate field
appealed to Olcott. He knew that queer things went on in
the compound, even though H.P.B. always cautioned her
assistants to be careful about the Colonel, who shrank from
trickery and shut his eyes rather than see it. He grasped at
this Ceylon project not only because it led him into the
pleasant glow of the lecture platform, but even more be-
cause it gave him a dignified excuse to escape for perhaps
half of each year from an atmosphere that was increasingly
suspect and uncongenial.

On the eve of Olcott’s departure for the 1881 tour, H.P.B.
suddenly demanded that he cancel the trip and remain in
Bombay to help her edit The Theosophist. Olcott refused.
It was one of the rare occasions when he faced her down.
After harrowing scenes, H.P.B. shut herself in her room for
an entire week; only Babula could see her, and he emerged
looking frightened, bearing her orders in curt notes. One of
these chits notified Olcott that all was over; the Masters
sent word that they would never communicate with him
again in any way if he persisted in this Ceylon trip. Olcott
stood his ground. He cared so much for this six-month res-
pite that he was even willing to risk his hopes of that future
for which he had deserted his sons and his country. The
impasse ended as suddenly as it began. Damodar had just
presented H.P.B. with a carriage and handsome pair of
horses. On the seventh day of her seclusion she emerged
and proposed that they try out the new equipage, an olive
branch that Olcott gladly accepted. On the following day,
February 19, 1881, the Master Ilarion, en route to Tibet
visited H.P.B. It often happened that after her big scenes,
when she had been especially difficult, the Masters would

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

drop by to bring ber cheering messages and tokens of their
approval.

After an absence of ten months, Olcott returned from
Ceylon on December 19, 1881, and found H.P.B. genuinely
glad to see him. Some disagreeable problems had piled up
in his absence. Madame Coulomb was getting out of hand.
She needled Damodar and the other chelas with malicious
insinuations about the old days in Cairo when she had
known H.P.B. as Madame Metrovitch; she had even carried
damaging stories to those archenemies, the missionaries.
H.P.B. was strangely powerless before her insolence, avoid-
ing her and waiting for the Colonel’s return. By this time
she had shifted responsibility for the Coulombs to Olcott’s
shoulders; she had never wanted Madame Coulomb in the
first place.

In her relief at seeing the Colonel, H.P.B. gave him a
letter from the Master commending his work in Ceylon.
The letter was an idol-smasher. In April, she had tried to
intimidate Olcott with warnings of eternal damnation if he
persisted in making the Ceylon tour. By December both
H.P.B. and the Masters had forgotten these fulminations;
not so Olcott. If they were really Masters, he brooded, how
could they forget? It was a turning point in Olcott’s life.
“Thenceforward, I did not love or prize her less as a friend
and teacher, but the idea of her infallibility, if I had ever
entertained it even approximately, was gone for ever.” 1 He
had gone too far to retrace his steps. For the rest of his life
he could only temporize and keep his eyes shut.

2. THE MAHATMAS

( 1880-I )

The palace of the Maharajah of Benares provided a mag-
nificent setting for a meeting of the General Council of the
Theosophical Society in December 1880. Basking in the

1 Olcott: O.D.L., II, 326.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

feudal pomp of the Maharajah’s court, the Theosophists re-
vised their constitution, pledged themselves “to regard all
men as equally their brothers, irrespective of Caste, colour,
race or creed.” This challenge to racism and white arrogance
adopted after two years in India indicated how rapidly
Madame had developed during this period. She had waited
until she was nearly fifty to come of age. Overnight she had
discarded the crude coquetry typified by her New York
Graphic interview. In the name of her new Tibetan Mahat-
mas she grappled with profound philosophical problems for
the rest of her life in dramatic contrast with the cheap
slickness and self-centered machinations of her earlier hier-
archy, Serapis and Tuitit Bey. Regardless of the value of her
achievement she qualified for membership in the intel-
lectual elite, that minority of the human race who have
minds and are not too lazy to put them to work.

H.P.B. made vigorous use of her new credo, incorporat-
ing it in the name of her organization, The Theosophical
Society or Universal Brotherhood, giving it precedence in
the Theosophist’s list of three objectives that today reads
unchanged: 1. to form the nucleus of a Universal Brother-
hood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex,
caste, or color; 2. the study of ancient and modern religions,
philosophies, and sciences, and the demonstration of the
importance of such study; 3. the investigation of the unex-
plained laws of Nature and the psychical powers latent in
man.

The principle of racial equality was oddly at variance with
the authorita^n mood and techniques of occultism, the
vows of blind obedience and secrecy. The coincidence that
the swastika was a favorite symbol and that Theosophists
used the word Aryan in the names of their magazines and
lodges seems more appropriate. Universal Brotherhood was
really a bit of opportunism. H.P.B. was doing her utmost to
attract important English officials to her cult; she was pre-
pared to do anything to hold them except throw out

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

her Indian chelas. Exuding the atmosphere of the “mys-
terious East,” they were essential as window dressing. She
could also count on them to furnish docile confederates.
But to keep the Indian brothers happy she must have a club
to force her arrogant British officials to be civil to them. The
high valuation she attached to this new objective is evi-
denced by her securing for it the endorsement of The-
osophy’s supreme power, the Maha Chohan himself. In the
only letter ascribed to him, a letter to Sinnett, he gave the
principle his august approval:

The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner-stone,
the foundation of the future religions of humanity. To achieve
the proposed object ... a more benevolent intermingling of the
high and the low, of the Alpha and Omega of Society, was de-
termined upon. The white race must be the first to stretch out
the hand of fellowship to the dark nations, to call the poor
despised “nigger” brother. This prospect may not smile to all,
but he is no Theosophist who objects to this principle.

In handling the two groups H.P.B. played one off against
the other with ingenuity. Stacking the cards in favor of the
Hindus on certain showy points, she quietly gave the Sahibs
privileges that fully compensated. She never permitted
Hume or Sinnett to qualify as chelas: they had wives, ate
meat, smoked, drank, were ineligible. But as lay chelas they
had important perquisites. The chelas were a picked group
of Hindus, vastly impressed and pathetically grateful to
Madame for this unique opportunity to take precedence
over the white Sahibs. They were, most of them, anemic
lads, schooled in a tradition of fatalism and renunciation,
taking pride in blind obedience, bringing something exces-
sive and morbid to their adoration of their guru, Madame
Blavatsky. Deliberately she promoted Damodar and Mo-
hini, her pet chelas, to dizzy heights: Damodar was part of
the astral postoffice, authorized in her absence to forward
letters between the Masters and the two moonstruck Eng-
lishmen.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

It was a bold step to undertake to tame the arrogant
white sahibs of the 1880’s by forcing them to fraternize
with Indian subordinates. The imagination and bitter hu-
mor displayed show H.P.B. at her most adroit as she ma-
neuvered the two groups, English and Indian, against each
other. Cleverly she established her authority and main-
tained amazing discipline. She relied on the principle of
exalting the humble and meek, but did not hesitate to give
the humble and meek a kick when it was needed.

For a Western woman, who could lead her own men
around by the nose, dominating her Indian confederates
was like taking candy from children. She had so many and,
in a way, such cruel advantages: economic pressure, offering
petty jobs to a starving white-collar class in a poverty-
stricken land; white prestige. Western women of education
and culture not being accustomed to receiving Indians so-
cially or taking an informed interest in their civilization;
understanding of men’s hearts, for though a poor judge
of human nature, she had an instinctive knowledge of her
own kind of men, their insecurity, fears, and heartaches,
their weakness for flattery and boyish craving for mystery.

H.P.B. now concentrated on expanding her latest The-
osophical novelty, the astral postal system. The physical
setup was superlatively simple. Sinnett’s and Hume’s letters
to the Masters must be given to her or to Damodar, by hand
or through the mails. Letters from the Masters were for-
warded by H.P.B. and Damodar to the Englishmen. The
messages ranged from brief comments penciled on margins
in red or blue pencil (just like John King and Serapis) to
manuscripts of several thousand words. The typical letter
was written on a special paper, made by hand in Kashmir
and Tibet. It was usually in red or black ink, sometimes in
green, or in colored pencil. Each Master had his distinctive
handwriting. It might be delivered in a dozen ways. Letters
brought in by Babula from the postman would contain en-

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

closures or postscripts from the Masters, though there was
no evidence of anyone’s having tampered with the seal.
Mystic notes materialized suddenly under a visitor’s pillow,
on his bureau, in his luggage. They fluttered down in rail-
way carriages, at picnics, from between the cloths that
swathe Indian ceilings to prevent lizards and insects from
dropping down the back of your neck.

By easy stages H.P.B. had arranged the metamorphosis
of her familiar spirits into Mahatmas. John King’s obsoles-
cence began in New York, that of Tuitit Bey and his Broth-
erhood of Luxor soon after she reached India. It was a
gradual disappearance recalling Alice in Wonderland’s
Cheshire Cat, which faded gently away until only the grin
was left. H.P.B. stopped talking about Egyptian Brothers
and substituted a Tibetan hierarchy with Indian-sounding
names that have been criticized by scholars as philologically
incongruous. Ultimately Theosophists picked up the term
Mahatma (literally great soul), roughly equivalent to our
Saint. The four leading characters of the new hierarchy
were:

Koot Hoomi Lal Singh, who signed a majority of the
Mahatma letters and was usually known by the initials K. H.
He had begun this last incarnation as a Punjabi, a member
of an old Kashmiri family. Interested in occultism from
boyhood, he had traveled widely and studied at Leipzig
University during the 1870’s. H.P.B’s most direct reminis-
cence of K. H. was camouflaged in the distortions of a
dream: she had visited his home in Tibet in 1870, met his
sister and her child, and sat on a mat in a corner of the room
while K. H., dressed in riding togs, strode back and forth
discussing Senzar, a mystery-language that she had been
studying with him.

The Master Morya, known as Master M., was an Elder
Statesman held in reserve to lend authority in case of need.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

He snapped out laconic statements in contrast to the ram-
bling style of Koot Hoomi and of H.P.B. Morya’s letters
rarely exceeded a half page or a single page. When phe-
nomena had been bungled and suspicion reared its ugly
head, M. appeared with authoritative comments and terse
orders. H.P.B. claimed that he had known her ever since
childhood and had saved her life in early escapades; he was
the Master of her dreams, the hero of that nuit memorable
in London, back in 1851— or was it 1853? On one occasion
the stern old Mahatma relaxed sufficiently to sigh over an
early photograph of H.P.B. and remark more tenderly than
grammatically, “That’s her as I knew her first, the lovely
maiden.” 2

Master Ilarion, also written Hilarion, a Greek whom
H.P.B. had known since i860, was supposed to assist with
her writings. After reaching India, she signed his name to
two fantastic stories that she reprinted in The Theosophist.
When she originally sold these stories to the New York Sun
in December 1875, she was still in her Egyptian phase, and
they stand in the Sun files over the signature Hadji Morya.

Djual Khul or D. K. was a celestial factotum, carrying
messages, drawing diagrams, uttering epigrams in support
of H.P.B.

The Maha Chohan towered above these lesser figures, a
Being of large, vague powers, corresponding fairly well to
the usual religious concept of God. He was used only on
special occasions as when he endorsed the adoption of the
Universal Brotherhood plank.

Originally the letters from the Mahatmas were sunk in
fathoms of mystery, guarded as elaborately as diplomatic
dispatch boxes. Sinnett and Hume, eager to share them
with each other, were not even allowed to let their most
confidential clerks make copies of them. They were required

2 The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p. 254. (Hereafter referred to
in the notes as Mahatma Letters. )

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

to take time to copy these long, rambling discourses by their
own hands, making two extra copies, one for H.P.B. (be-
cause of course she did not know what was in them) and
one for her favorite chela, Damodar.

When the letters finally came to light they scarcely jus-
tified so much mystery. In addition to metaphysical abstrac-
tions and occult technicalities, K. H. wrote Sinnett pages
of petty gossip. When things were going badly he could be
very spiteful and abusive, resembling his agent, H.P.B. This
barbed chatter in its lumbering fashion had a definite pur-
pose; every incident fitted into a pattern of rousing sym-
pathy for H.P.B ., smoothing over discrepancies, and rein-
forcing her authority. Always on the lookout for competent
confederates, Madame repeatedly became involved with
rogues and madmen, eulogizing them one month, blasting
them the next. Debonairly the Masters echoed her revised
estimates. In spite of their alleged power to read minds,
they seemed unembarrassed by their failure to detect im-
postors until the sheriff had his hand on their coatsleeves.
Scores of earnest men and women have lavished an aggre-
gate of several lifetimes of study on the Mahatma letters. A
long list of books and monographs, pro and con, is still
growing. The Hare brothers, one a disillusioned Theoso-
phist, devoted years of intensive research to their book.
Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters, a scholarly and devastat-
ing study published in 1936. Their verdict was that the
letters, with the exception of a few credited to her con-
federates, were written by H.P.B.

Sinnett used a month’s sea trip to England in February
1881 to write his book The Occult World, in which he
amplified press accounts of the Simla phenomena and used
discreet quotations from the Mahatmas’ letters. Passing
through Bombay, he received an outline of the proposed
book from the Master K. H. At the moment, H.P.B. was
isolated by an attack of temperament, and Olcott delivered
the outline with a note enclosed:

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Dear O-. Forward this immediately to A. P. Sinnett and do not
breathe a word of it to H.P.B. Let her alone and do not go near
her for a few days. The storm will subsidy.

K. H. L. S.

Such homely devices as this convinced the neophytes that
H.P.B. was not the author of the Mahatma letters. The
caution not to breathe a word to H.P.B. proved that she
had not written the note. Moreover, the author viewed her
tantrums with the impersonal tolerance of a sage, far re-
moved from the passions of humanity. Trusting Olcott and
serious-minded Sinnett would have indignantly repudiated
a suggestion that H.P.B. in the white heat of her rage could
sit down behind a closed door and concoct this impersonal
comment on her frenzy: “Let her alone . . . the storm will
subside.”

On his return to India in July, Sinnett went directly to
the Crow’s Nest to inquire for a message from the Masters.
The Occult World, rushed through the press during his four
months in England, was creating a sensation. The first com-
petently written account of Theosophic claims, it went
through a dozen editions and was the most widely read and
effective piece of propaganda published during H.P.B’s life-
time. Sinnett expected a message of commendation, and
H.P.B. was touched by his boyish disappointment when she
said there was nothing for him.

Rising early next day according to Indian custom, H.P.B.
encountered Sinnett on the veranda in the cool of the morn-
ing and led him back into his room, where they seated them-
selves on either side of a center table. Sinnett could talk of
only one subject, “Why on earth have I not had a letter in
answer to mine?” he asked.

“Perhaps he will send it to you. Try to exercise your will
power; try to appeal to him. Ask him to send it to you.”

“No,” replied Sinnett, “I will await his time; he will send
it sooner or later, no doubt.”

At that instant a package dropped down on the table be-

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

side him, a large envelope containing a manuscript of seven
thousand words. It was the first in a series of abstruse exposi-
tions of Theosophic theory, and was received by the English
journalist with humble reverence. On July 8, 1881, the
astral postoffice had entered upon its second phase.

3. SECOND SUMMER IN SIMLA
( l-88l )

The withering blight of another hot weather was upon
them. H.P.B. and Sinnett were glad to accept an invitation
to spend August and September 1881 with Mr. Hume in
Simla. Mrs. Sinnett was still in England, Olcott in Ceylon.
They were rather pleased to have their group stripped down
to the essential three. Rothney Castle, Hume’s home, pro-
vided a luxurious and romantic setting; the summer sparkled
with moments of enchantment. During the morning the
men followed a business routine slowed down to the lei-
surely tempo of the white Sahib in hot-weather India. In
the afternoon they returned to the Castle and, leaning
back in lazy deck chairs, watched the snow-capped peaks of
the Himalayas while bare-footed servants in gleaming white
served cool drinks and punkahs pulled by unseen coolies
languidly stirred the air. From then on it was pure bliss until
they reluctantly parted long after midnight. H.P.B. was at
her best casually reminiscing about the Masters. Almost
every day they were interrupted by the tinkle of a silver bell
summoning Upasika— the Masters’ pet name for her— to
her room. In a few minutes she would return with a timely
message from K. H., or even from M., about the matter in
hand.

H.P.B. was on her mettle. Hume was the most important
person with whom she had come to grips, but he required
more careful stalking than the usual prospect. She had a
robust sense of humor, often sardonic, often ribald, and she
loved to laugh. But Hume’s quips made her uncomfortable.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

“My dear Old Lady,” he jvrote, . . though I am desper-
ately inclined at times to believe that you are an impostor,
I believe I love you more than any of them.” It left a bad
taste: she could not be sure how much he meant it when
he called her “a chronic humbug” or complained that
he had never been given satisfactory assurance that “all
the letters were not evolved out of the Old Lady’s fertile
brain.”

This was lese-majeste, but she forced herself to put up
with it and found relief in abusing him to Sinnett and
Olcott: “I despise Hume . . . the biggest liar in creation
... a Pecksniff . . . Saint Moses . . . such a skunk as he
is . . . the evil genius of the Society . . . mark my word,
Hume is beginning to be off his head.” In addition to their
study of the Ancient Wisdom, Hume and Sinnett were
eager to discuss several practical matters in Olcott’s absence.
They wanted their own branch of the Theosophical Society
in Simla, admitting only Sahibs and Memsahibs, so exclu-
sive that it would deal with H.P.B. and the Masters, but be
independent of President Olcott and the parent society.
This proposal was firmly vetoed.

It was all very well for Hume and Sinnett to look down
their noses at Olcott, but it may have been his absence that
precipitated the summer’s disastrous climax, for he served
as a lightning rod to carry off the flashes of his lady’s dis-
pleasure. In his absence, H.P.B’s tempers continued to cor-
uscate, but when the flashes struck these proper English
gentlemen she discovered that she had made a social error.
The two men, having agreed to write a series of eight articles
for the magazine, had conspired to pin the Old Lady down
and force her to organize her theories into a more orderly
sequence. The weeks were passing and she had contrived so
far to short-circuit their questions and slide out from under
their efforts. In default of reducing the Ultimate Truth to
something the average man could understand, they cast
about for a new approach and determined to go over Mad-

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

ame’s head. They would write directly to the Master K. H.,
declare their ambition to serve as his interpreters, explain
that it was impossible to make sense of many of H.P.B’s
communications, and urge that they be permitted to estab-
lish direct contact with the Masters.

So far, so good. The letter was drafted, revised, copied,
sealed. Then came the rub. What to do with it? They could
not suspect H.P.B. of peeking at mail not intended for her,
and yet. ... It was a ridiculous situation, and the men
knew it. Yet, if they could only clear this hurdle, it would
be worth having looked ridiculous for a few minutes. Finally
—there was nothing else to do— Sinnett agreed to ask H.P.B.
to forward the letter for them. He found her strumming at
the piano in the empty ballroom; she poked the letter into
her pocket without looking at it and continued playing. He
had hardly reseated himself in the library when H.P.B.
burst in upon him. She was white with rage. Her eyes
glowed with an almost manic intensity.

“What have you been doing?” she screamed.

An embarrassing scene followed, with H.P.B. erupting
threats and vituperation. All was over, they had killed all
chances of further occult advancement, the Masters would
never communicate with them again, she would abandon
India and, with Olcott, move Theosophy to Ceylon, where
they were better appreciated. The men tried to stop her by
asking sternly if she had opened and read a sealed letter not
intended for her, but she paid no attention and continued
to castigate them like naughty schoolboys.

Hysterics of H.P.B’s type find a perverse satisfaction in
the cruelty of such scenes; they come back from them re-
freshed and amiable, ready to forgive and forget. But Hume
could not forget. Such a scene he considered worse than
vulgar. It was immoral, dissolute, and it convinced him
that H.P.B. was an impostor: no woman guilty of such in-
temperance could have been selected to represent super-
natural powers. He continued to act as host with icy cour-

169

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

tesy, but withdrew from further discussions. In vain H.P.B.
tried to put back the pieces of the dream she had shattered.
Master Morya sharply reprimanded Hume: for days he had
barely looked at H.P.B., and as he knew how excitable and
ill-balanced she was, such a hostile attitude was wicked and
cruel. Struggling for a reconciliation, H.P.B. hung on grimly,
continuing to accept the hospitality of a man who barely
spoke to her.

The Master K. H. intervened with an ingenious defense
of the Old Lady. The occult chiefs, he wrote' Sinnett, had
been searching for nearly a century for someone competent
to serve as their interpreter to the western world. With all
her faults, H.P.B. was the best qualified person in existence,
and they would have to take the Masters’ word for it. K. H.
admitted that she was “a very undesirable transmitter of our
messages,” and he enumerated her disabilities: her unbal-
anced mind, her nervous excitement, her outbursts of
temper, all those habits “which so revolt you.” He could not
explain more fully, the time was not ripe, they would not be
capable of understanding even if they were told. But it came
down to this: the Old Lady’s condition was intimately con-
nected with her occult training in Tibet. According to The-
osophical theory borrowed from Paracelsus, the complete
human being consists of seven principles or elements.
Chelas returning to this world after serving an apprentice-
ship in Tibet are required to leave behind a piece of them-
selves, one of these elements, as a hostage, a guarantee never
to reveal top secrets. Lacking her seventh principle, H.P.B.
was handicapped, was a “psychological cripple”; she could
not be expected to maintain the poise and self-control of
the normal person. Aspirants to occult knowledge must
learn to accept H.P.B’s whims and rages. Anyone who
could not pass this elementary test was not eligible as an
occultist.

Taking up the immediate situation, K. H. admitted that
the Master Morya had made a mistake; he should not have

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ENTER THE MAHATMAS

sent H.P.B. in her disturbed state with a message to Mr.
Sinnett. “But to hold her responsible for her purely psycho-
logical excitement, and to let her see your contemptuous
smiles was positively sinful. Pardon me my Brothers and
good Sirs my plain talk.” K. H. roundly condemned their
attitude and told them that “however much polished out-
wardly, they had been very cruel .” 8 When Mr. Hume still
remained glacial, the Master M., throwing off his reserve,
wrote an eleven-page letter of pleading and reprimand. Of
course H.P.B. had not read their letter; he, the Master
Morya, took full responsibility for her conduct, and she was
acting under his orders in every detail. He had been in the
room all the time and had heard every word that was
spoken. He reproached them for failure to appreciate the
nervous strain under which she labored in handling their
constant letters. They must see that she was all of a tremble
and ready to go to pieces. In fact, he was considering putting
a stop to all communication because the burden fell too
heavily upon their loyal, devoted servant, H.P.B., who
stood always ready to give her heart’s blood for the Holy
Cause.

The best that H.P.B. could manage was to postpone
Hume’s resignation for another year. He was committed to
serve as president of the Simla branch, and he probably
preferred not to give public notice of the breach of relations.
He even finished a pamphlet, Essay on Miracles, answering
attacks on the Theosophists for inconsistency and breach of
their own codes. After that, he wrote H.P.B. another of his
ironic notes:

You, you dear old sinner (and wouldn’t you have been a
reprobate under normal conditions?) are the wordt breach of all
—your entire want of control of temper— your utterly un-Buddha
and un-Christlike manner of speaking of all who offend you—
your reckless statements form together an indictment that it is
hard to meet.

8 Ibid., p. 204.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

He said that he had put the best possible face on all
“the awkward facts,” but he had to admit that he himself
remained unconvinced:

Never, until I came to defend it did 1 realize the extreme
weakness of our position . . . though I may stop others’ moitths,
I personally am not satisfied.*

Until Hume resigned and severed all relations, H.P.B.
refused to give up hope. She made the most competent ef-
forts of her career on his behalf. She also stooped to childish
tricks on the principle that to make people believe, you
must show them signs and wonders. She decided that a
Simla confederate to touch off phenomena in her absence
would make an impression. She was paying a stiff price for
such a confederate at Adyar, Madame Coulomb. Candi-
dates were scarce, and she had to take almost anyone, re-
gardless of qualifications. Fern, a clerk in Hume’s office,
had been permitted to meet Madame because he had shown
some small aptitude as a medium. Immediately he was
picked out for unprecedented honors. The reticent Master
Morya sent Fem his picture and actually signed his letters,
“Yours still lovingly, M.”

Hume cautioned H.P.B. that Fern was a humbug and a
liar, and even wrote a letter to Koot Hoomi about him.
Fem fumbled the small parts assigned him in minor phe-
nomena and stupidly let himself be caught in falsehoods.
H.P.B. dismissed warnings as caused by jealousy, and K. H.
continued to rhapsodize about the growth of Fern’s soul:
“A soul is being breathed into him, a new spirit let in, and
with every day he is advancing toward a state of higher de-
velopment” Suddenly the Masters changed their tune.
Fern was “a double dealing monkey” and “a tavern Pericles
with a sweet smile for every street Aspasia.” Master Morya,
who had been downright silly about the young man, re-

4 Letters p. 306.

172

ENTER THE MAHATMAS

pudiated his numerous letters to him; they were forgeries,
emanating from the dugpas who had charge of Fem. But
it was too late. Fem was caught red-handed embezzling
Hume's payrolls. That ended his Simla career and added no
lustre to the reputation of the Masters.

173

CHAPTER XI

WHAT IS TRUTH?

(1882 )

THEOSOPHISTS believe that the Mahatmas wrote the
Mahatma letters. If Madame assisted, it was only as an
amanuensis who, to help economize on their use of magical
power, took down messages they dictated.

Non-Theosophists and ex-Theosophists who have investi-
gated the evidence are convinced that the Mahatmas were
creatures of Madame’s imagination and that she— or, in a
few cases, her confederates— composed and wrote the
letters. It is really a flattering impeachment to charge Mad-
ame with ability to pit her wits against such able men as
Hume and Sinnett and hold them for two years hoodwinked
and fascinated by the cosmology taking shape under their
joint efforts. It required imagination, mental agility, and
hard work to keep ahead of them. Like Oliver Twist, they
were forever clamoring for more. They had heard enough
generalities about the Inscrutable East and the formulas
locked in its bosom; they demanded to be taken behind the
scenes and see what made occultism tick. This was exactly
what H.P.B. herself had come to India to find out, and so
far, she had had poor luck.

The only promising source of information at the moment

174

WHAT IS TRUTH?

was a man she had not met. As Editor of The Theosophist,
she had heard from a Telegu Brahmin, Subba Row, whose
letters revealed, besides an interest in Theosophy, a keen
mind and scholarship in the Hindu classics. T. Subba Row,
a pleader in the Madras courts, was a Sanskrit scholar, a
deputy of the college of Vedantin learning in Mysore, and
a disciple of Shankaracharya, the great sage of southern
India. H.P.B. sought help from this stranger, whom she had
never even seen. She wrote begging him to direct her to a
guru competent to instruct some distinguished and influen-
tial Englishmen in the secrets of occultism. Such a request
from an unknown Western woman was enough to make
Hindu scholars back off; they have seen too much exploita-
tion of Western credulity by the charlatans of magic. Subba
Row replied with evasive generalities, whereupon H.P.B.,
who really had to produce something to quiet her neo-
phytes, arranged a tour with Olcott in April 1882 to include
Madras, the home of Subba Row. On meeting her in per-
son, the learned Hindu inevitably succumbed, accepted her
unseemly haste as a western eccentricity, and did his best
to be helpful. He told her that a few real Adepts still sur-
vived in India and that he believed the truth of the Ancient
Wisdom would ultimately be revealed. The essentials for
restoring the lost formula were to be found in India, if one
had the insight to recognize them:

We still have the clue in our hands to understand the teaching
of our old Rishis and the doctrines of every other system of Phi-
losophy which has sprung from the Ancient Wisdom Religion.
And I venture to affirm . . . we still have the clue to find out
the LOST FORMULA if it is indeed already lost. This is not a
vain boast I assure you. ... It should be strongly impressed on
the minds of the English theosophists that these men are not
very anxious to get their existence recognized by them. 1

It was vague, but it was something. It was, in fact, the
most encouraging response H.P.B. had found, and she took
1 Letters p. 317.

175

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

comfort in it. At this first meeting with Subba Row she
commissioned him, behind the Colonel’s back, to purchase
Huddlestone Gardens, a handsome estate lying six miles
outside the city. She must have him available for easy refer-
ence. Picking up the Colonel, the Coulombs, and the
Chelas, she moved her international headquarters to Adyar
in order to be near Subba Row. They have remained there
ever since.

Even Subba Row could not solve her immediate problem,
however. Hume and Sinnett were calling her bluff. They
insisted on elementary lessons in producing supernormal
manifestations. She could not explain that most of her phe-
nomena depended on simple legerdemain or the aid of con-
federates. In this emergency H.P.B. backhandedly revealed
what she really believed, thus affording a glimpse into the
workings of an occultist’s mind. Although faking her own
effects, she still earnestly believed that a few genuine adepts
existed and handed down closely guarded formulas of the
Ancient Wisdom, a body of arcane knowledge that enabled
them to perform by will power alone the marvels which she
could only pretend to achieve. She was complacently con-
fident of her ability to ferret out these secrets if she could
only track down a genuine adept. Goaded on by her de-
termination to hold Hume, she applied herself with fresh
vigor to her quest for the Secrets of the East, never aban-
doned, but merely retarded by the rebuffs of the Swami
Dayanand.

Because a belief in magic and the supernatural satisfies
an universal human craving, it is used by every religion.
Through the centuries an elaborate fantasia has been com-
posed upon the theme of Indian yogis and their powers, real
and imagined. The rope trick is an example of the myths
cherished by generations of the credulous. The mysterious
East has enjoyed a long term advertising campaign as unreal
as a Florida real estate boom. Its bibliography ranges from
the memoirs of ascetics, true and false, to the lurid pages of

176

WHAT IS TRUTH?

the Sunday supplements, and it leaves the innocent by-
stander wondering what he may believe. This uncertainty
gives unusual interest to the confidences of Subba Row,
Hindu scholar and lawyer, speaking from his heart to a
woman clever enough to convince him that she was not only
his superior in knowledge of the Mysteries, but that she was
an occultist of high rank. Her correspondence with Subba
Row was the realest thing H.P.B. ever found in her years of
search for the secrets of occultism.

As a southerner, Subba Row naturally believed that what
little knowledge of occultism survived was to be found in
the south of India, and especially in his own Madras presi-
dency. He admitted with disarming candor that he had
never heard of any beings comparable to the Tibetan
adepts under whom H.P.B. claimed to have trained: the few
initiates remaining in southern India were hermits who
lived alone in remote and secret spots. They attained their
powers through years of rigorous asceticism and complete
detachment from the world. Absorbed in their mystical
quest to exchange the reality of this world for visions of
a future and better world, wrote Subba Row, they took no
interest in politics and economics; it was indifferent to them
whether India was governed well or ill, whether famines
ravaged the land, whether the truths of Yoga Vidya became
more or less widely known.

Even if her Britishers should accidentally stumble over
a real yogi Subba Row questioned whether they would
profit by the encounter. Indian ascetics despised such essen-
tials of an Englishman’s code as personal cleanliness and
certain minimum decencies. Their appearance was revolt-
ing, their naked bodies smeared with ashes and filth, their
hair matted, their eyes red-rimmed from drugs, their limbs
often covered with sores and vermin. They would simulate
madness and babble nonsense in order to get rid of importu-
nate questioners. If an adept was finally convinced of a
would-be chela’s serious interest, the neophyte was required

177

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

to give up family, wealth, and position, and to clothe him-
self in rags and follow his guru into the depths of the forest
before he was considered for probation. “Is there a single
English theosophist who is prepared to do so?” asked Subba
Row. He warned H.P.B. that she was attempting the im-
possible. These adepts had no earthly desires through which
they could be induced to disclose their secrets. They real-
ized that if the public ever tracked them down, their pur-
pose in life would be defeated, their retreats desecrated, and
they would find themselves surrounded by gaping sight-
seers. Subba Row assured H.P.B. that in his opinion none
of the southern adepts could be persuaded to take the in-
terest that, by her own statement, the Masters Koot Hoomi
and Morya had already shown on behalf of the Theoso-
phists. It was difficult to toss back his recommendation that
she appeal to her own Mahatmas on behalf of her two
aspirants!

Six months later, in August 1882, having made no prog-
ress in the hunting of the elusive guru, H.P.B. undertook
to secure the services of Subba Row himself as occult coach
for her neophytes. Expense was no object: he might go to
them in Simla, or they would go to him in Madras, traveling
the length of India, fifteen hundred miles, as frequently as
need be. Subba Row shied away in horror. He knew that
the Britishers would bring along their prejudices, arrogance,
and scientific preconceptions, and that they would soon be
insisting that he conform to their standards and answer
their questions. Occultism could not be taught on those
terms: like a vacuum, it could not be diagrammed. He must
impose the conditions, even the mood, and he must reserve
the freedom to refuse to answer tabooed questions. Neo-
phytes would inevitably be disappointed. He reminded
H.P.B. that he was interested in philosophy and metaphys-
ics and knew little about the phenomenal side.

Refusing to take no for an answer, H.P.B. tried to reach
him through his patriotism. These were influential men,

178

H.P.B’s mocking inscription in her copy of “The Voice of Silence”

Message and signature of Mahatma Morya

WHAT IS TRUTH?

prepared to carry out any orders of the Mahatmas, and she
tried to bribe him with an offer of their influence with the
Raj on behalf of his country. He was, she told him, India’s
“only plank of salvation.” Subba Row was not to be bought.
Finally H.P.B. brought out her last reserves, and Subba
Row reluctantly consented to take her pupils on the writ-
ten orders of the Masters M. and K. H. “I cannot but obey
their commands.” He protected himself by refusing to meet
his pupils in person, limiting the lessons to correspondence.
He had one other resource. Oriental delaying tactics. Hume
had resigned from the Society, and Sinnett had left India
permanently while Subba Row was still circling around
with preliminaries.

The ultimate effort to hold Hume’s interest and the most
costly for H.P.B. had to be off the record. The Mahatmas
wrote Sinnett more than one hundred letters, discussing
anything and everything, casually mixing in gossip and scan-
dal. By contrast, in their dozen letters to Hume, they put
their best metaphysical foot forward. A half dozen of these
epistles written in July and August 1882 are still reprinted
as Theosophical classics. They discuss the nature of God,
of evil, cosmic origins, conditions after death, and Theo-
sophical theories, such as the planetary chain (borrowed
from the Hindus). Unconsciously Hume was serving as
H.P.B’s collaborator, checking her arguments, pointing out
omissions and inconsistencies, submitting lists of carefully
thought-out questions, extending her canvas to cosmic pro-
portions. Although she had a score of irons in the fire,
H.P.B. devoted long days and nights of study and concen-
tration to producing these letters. In spite of all her abuse
and name-calling, she appreciated the quality of the man
and gave her utmost in an effort to hold him.

The final clash came over a fundamental issue, one that
has caused unlimited grief to honest Theosophists. It is an
issue inherent in cults that depend on special revelations
and expect their deified founders to grow into seven league

179

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

boots. It is especially menacing in occultism because the
vows of secrecy invite abuses and condone behavior that
would not be tolerated in the full light of day. Both H.P.B.
and Annie Besant, her successor, were intoxicated by a cu-
mulative sense of power that fed upon the abject surrender
and hero worship of their disciples. Most cults find it a
heady brew, and it leads to strange vagaries. Under the in-
fluence of a craving for ever greater power, H.P.B. required
oaths of cast-iron obedience and secrecy. Behind this de-
mand for blind obedience Madame camouflaged her defi-
ance of a question that has baffled philosophers and moral-
ists from the beginning of time: What is Truth?

Jesting Pilate would not stay for an answer. Neither
would Hume. He had a horrid feeling that whatever it was,
Truth was being roughly handled by the Mahatmas. He
had been unable to ignore the implications of the Fem epi-
sode. If chela candidates were carefully selected before be-
ing admitted to probation, how, asked Hume, could the
Masters pass this crook in the first place? In reply the Mas-
ters tried to establish fundamental distinctions between
Eastern and Western standards of honor. Everything un-
palatable to Hume from codes of conduct to definitions of
terms was made to swing on this difference. They had a
long controversy over the word “ingenuity,” which K. H.
had used too casually, saying that he exercised his ingenuity
to reconcile an inconsistent passage in Isis. A chorus of pro-
tests rose from Hume, Massey, and Sinnett, who considered
it “a most unhappy phrase.” To them it seemed sacrilegious
to suggest that the Mahatmas were capable of craft and
guile. They clung passionately to their own concept of the
Masters as pure spirits dealing in eternal truth and as intol-
erant of duplicity as an English gentleman.

Insidiously, persistently, the Masters strove to undermine
the inbred reactions of these Britishers to right and wrong.
Cleverly H.P.B. traded on the trend from the black-and-
white moral codes of the past to the misty greys of the mod-

180

WHAT IS TRUTH?

em world. Master K. H. attacked the problem with a flour-
ish: he quoted Kant’s definition of conscience and ridiculed
the theory that in the absence of traditions and codes man
would find a dependable guide in his own moral perceptions
—in other words, in his conscience. Master M. attacked ig-
norant complacence, and wrote about maya (illusion). Man
grasped so little of the real truth beneath illusions that he
was not competent to reach valid conclusions on any sub-
ject. Whereas, boasted Master Morya, “we ignorant Asiatics
of Tibet” were so accustomed to reading the minds of our
correspondents as to give little heed to their actual words.
In view of the Mahatmas’ disastrous failure to distinguish
between rogues and honest men, their complacence seemed
ill-advised to Mr. Hume.

Feeling her way to discover how far she could go, H.P.B.
gave her neophytes individualized treatment. She was cau-
tious with Hume, but she had progressive hurdles for men
like Sinnett who failed to cry stop. When they passed these
tests, they received heart-warming letters of commendation
from the Masters, as in the case of H.P.B’s topaz ring. Mrs.
Sinnett had admired it, and right in her presence H.P.B.
miraculously duplicated it and slipped the twin ring on her
finger. Master K. H. wrote to Sinnett in October 1882, con-
gratulating him on having said nothing about his suspicions
of the episode: “Disliking in the depths of your soul such
a useless deception . . . you have not repudiated her
[ H.P.B. ] for all that, nor exposed nor complained of her in
the papers.” K. H. assured Sinnett that his suspicions were
unjustified. The ring had been miraculously doubled, but
that was beside the point. The important thing was that
even though doubting the good faith of the phenomenon,
Sinnett had kept his mouth shut. “You were undeniably
right in acting with such discretion in the matter.” 2

Reactions to this course of training corresponded to the
temperament of the disciple. Olcott could shut his eyes to
2 Mahatma Letters, p. 310.

181

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

anything. Sinnett also shut his eyes, but could be pushed
only so far. Hume liked the shivery feeling of playing Let's
Pretend with mysteries, but he drew the line at tampering
with his British standard of honor. He defined his position
at the outset in a careful letter to the Master K. H. In it, he
respectfully questioned the Master’s ethics in commending
Olcott on the sole ground that he never asked questions,
but always obeyed. The correspondence is especially inter-
esting because sixty years later this question of blind obe-
dience became a major issue in a world war, with the Axis
dictatorships attempting to enforce it, and the Allied na-
tions successfully opposing it. Hume objected strongly to:

this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one’s
own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside
voices as a substitute for one’s own conscience. . . . [Such an
attitude was ] a sin of no ordinary magnitude. . . . Nay further,
I feel bound to say that if this doctrine of blind obedience is an
essential one in your system . . . then frankly the matter for
me is at an end— I am no military machine .' 1

Vainly Sinnett struggled to reconcile his guru and his
prize protege. Blind obedience was essential to H.PJB’s pro-
gram; there could be no compromise. In September 1882,
two years of sparring with Hume ended; he resigned from
the presidency of the select Simla branch and withdrew
from the Society. H.P.B. was both winner and loser. (See
Appendix G, page 324.)

8 Ibid., p. 437.

182

CHAPTER XII

HOODOO YEARS

(1882—3)

THE OUTPUT of Mahatma letters reached its high point
in 1882 with more than one hundred thousand words to
Sinnett alone. H.P.B. was writing the history of the uni-
verse, beginning a million years ago. Just when she needed
peace and quiet for this ambitious task, she was caught up
in a succession of catastrophes. The series began with an-
other of her efforts to secure a medium as a confederate.

William Eglinton, a popular young English medium vis-
iting India, had become the rage. In Calcutta he was the
guest of Colonel and Mrs. Gordon. Prominent members
of the Simla group of Theosophists, the Gordons were cha-
grined when Eglinton’s spirit controls, Ernest and Joey, said
that they had never heard of the Masters K. H. and M.
Worse still, when Eglinton came out of his trance, he cor-
roborated his spirits and said there were no such people as
Mahatmas. Suddenly after some swift undercover work, all
three— Eglinton, Ernest, and Joey— announced that there
had been a misunderstanding, that they knew the Mahat-
mas well and had been appointed to work in concert with
them. Before Eglinton set sail from Calcutta it had been
quietly arranged that the Master K. H. should visit him on

183

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

board his ship on March 24, when it was several days at sea,
and should bring back letters from Eglinton to H.P.B. in
Bombay and to Mrs. Gordon in Calcutta.

Seven devoted Hindu chelas and probationers were with
H.P.B. as witnesses the evening when the Eglinton letters
dropped from the ceiling. A few minutes later— transmis-
sion by the Masters is practically instantaneous— the Eglin-
ton letters forwarded to Calcutta dropped from Mrs. Gor-
don’s ceiling. It happened that Colonel Olcott and
Madame’s chela-on-probation, Bhawani Row, were staying
with the Gordons at the moment.

Then things began to go wrong. For purposes of identifi-
cation, Eglinton, on board the Vega, asked one of the pas-
sengers, a prominent Englishwoman from Calcutta, to
mark the several letters he was entrusting to Koot Hoomi,
and she made three crosses on each letter. Later, on her re-
turn to Calcutta, she noticed that Mrs. Gordon’s letter was
marked with Latin crosses, not the crosses she had made
and not in the same position on the envelope. Evidently
this was not the original letter. Another development con-
firmed this conclusion. When Eglinton mentioned to an-
other shipmate, J. E. O’Connor, that Master Koot Hoomi
was aboard and would leave shortly carrying letters back to
India, O’Connor suggested that he too would like to send
a word of greeting to Madame. Eglinton was not quick-
witted enough to handle the situation and he stupidly ac-
cepted the man’s note.

Miraculous arrival of the Eglinton letters on March 24
was widely publicized, but the O’Connor enclosure was
never heard of until May, eight weeks after the event, time
enough for the Vega to have reached port and an east-
bound mail to have returned to Madame. Sinnett heard
about it by the same mail, receiving a letter from O’Connor
in London, who wanted to know what had happened. Sin-
nett, who had been proudly impressed by the Eglinton
letters, now telegraphed H.P.B. in distress, passing on

184

HOODOO YEARS

O’Connor’s query. She gave herself twenty-four hours be-
fore answering and handled a messy situation as well as
was humanly possible. O’Connor’s letter was so stupid and
transparent, she wrote, that it had not seemed worth men-
tioning. Of course she had received it, about an hour after
the other letters, but the Masters had ordered her to say
nothing about it! She added elaborate sub-alibis, a letter
Damodar had forgotten to mail, etc. She closed her letter
with one of those Scriptural identifications reserved for
emergencies:

Methinks I hear the cock crowing ... I hope 1 will not hear
him crow thrice. O Peter, for your own sake, not my sake. Yours
forever in all the bitterness of my heart,

H. P. Blavatsky . 1

Six weeks later she changed the entire story and repudi-
ated Eglinton as a poor epileptic, subject to fits and sus-
pected of trickery.

While Madame was still revising the Eglinton story she
suffered a peculiarly damaging rebuff. In April 1882, Swami
Dayanand publicly repudiated the Theosophists. On his
guard because of her exaggerated interest in phenomena, he
had learned of several abortive efforts on her part to secure
confederates among his followers. Originally attracted by
the non-sectarian professions of these Western Theoso-
phists, he had been surprised and alienated by the widely
advertised conversion of the Founders to Buddhism. An
honest, simple reformer, he now thundered forth like a Sav-
onarola with overtones of H.P.B. herself. She was, he said,
an ignorant adventuress and a liar; her court of salaaming
Indian chelas were nothing more than confederates. He had
taken the trouble to question her and the Colonel and had
found that neither of them knew anything about the Yoga
Vidya (occult science) practiced by the swamis of old. For
her to say that she performed phenomena without appara-
tus or confederates and that she depended solely on the
1 Letters p. 17.

185

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

forces of nature and her own will power “is to tell a lie.” 2
The Swami denounced Madame and her cult from the plat-
form, and at the close of his lectures Samajists distributed
handbills describing H.P.B’s fraudulent activities. Having
innocently associated himself with the Theosophists, the
Swami in honest indignation made a thorough job of pub-
licizing his disillusionment.

The attack was a double disaster for H.P.B. She dared
not threaten to sue the Swami for libel, and how could she
explain her mistake in calling him a Mahatma? Worse than
that: how could her Mahatmas have been deceived about
him?

The next calamity resulted from still another effort to
use a medium-confederate. The story broke in July 1882
when Massey, first President of the British Theosophists,
and recipient of the magical cardcase from Hurrychund,
published letters critical of H.P.B. in the London spiritual-
ist weekly. Light. He asked how it happened that although
reincarnation was now a basic Theosophical theory, Mad-
ame had dismissed the subject almost contemptuously
when writing Isis a few years earlier. He quoted among
other passages the statement, from page 351 of the first
volume of Isis, that reincarnation was not a rule in nature
but “an exception like the teratological phenomenon of a
two-headed infant.”

The sequence of events leading to Massey's disillusion-
ment had begun when H.P.B. had publicly denounced
Hurrychund Chintamon for pocketing her six hundred
rupees. To get away from it all, Hurrychund had gone to
London, where he was surprised to find himself known and
talked about in spiritualist circles as the donor of the mys-
terious cardcase— with his signature enclosed— that Mad-
ame had materialized for Mr. Massey. He took pleasure in
informing Massey and everyone else that the whole thing
was tamasha, a fraud. Neither he nor the Swami Dayanand

2 Journal, Society for Psychical Research, November 1885.

186

HOODOO YEARS

had supernatural powers, and Madame’s Mahatmas and her
phenomena were all bogus.

Anticipating such exposures, H.P.B. constantly warned
her followers of the unpopularity of their cause and told
them to be ready for libelous attacks and persecution, which
were permitted in order to test their faith and their fitness
for further advancement along the thorny path of occult-
ism. This was not, however, enough to satisfy Massey in the
face of the evidence furnished by Hurrychund. His belief
in H.P.B. and her whole system was challenged. On her
way out to India, H.P.B. had forehandedly tried to provide
against such a predicament by securing a medium-confeder-
ate. She had exacted a promise from Mrs. Billing that in
case of need her spirit control. Ski, would deliver messages
from H.P.B. to Massey according to directions. She now
wrote Mrs. Billing reminding her of her promise:

My dear Good Friend: Do you remember what Z [Ski] told
or rather promised to me? That whenever there is need for it he
will always be ready to carry any message, leave it either on
Massey’s table, his pocket, or some other mysterious place. Well
now, there is the most important need for such a show of all his
powers. Please ask him to take the enclosed letter and put it into
M[assey]’s pocket, or in some other still more mysterious place.
But he muk not know it is Z [Ski]. . . . 3

The enclosure was a warm commendation of Massey from
Koot Hoomi.

When Massey opened the minute book at the next meet-
ing of the Theosophists, a letter addressed in the well-
known hand of the Master K. H. stared up at him. Every-
one disclaimed knowledge of the letter, and Massey
concluded that it was a supernatural manifestation. He
accepted it thankfully, once again he could shut his eyes and
whisper “I believe.” He so deeply wanted it to be true. It
meant that out of all the world, he had been selected for
special recognition by the Masters of the Universe.

* Arthur Lillie: Madame Blavatsky and Her “ Theosophy ,” p. 158.

187

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

The matter did not rest there. Skeptics’ went to work on
this new phenomenon. Hurrychund had cultivated the
friendship of Mrs. Billing’s disgruntled husband. Dr. Bil-
ling. Under cross questioning, Mrs. Billing broke down,
admitted that Ski had put the envelope in the minute book,
and even showed Massey the note from H.P.B. authorizing
the deception. When taxed with it, H.P.B. admitted writ-
ing the letter quoted above, but stoutly refused to admit
any impropriety in the request. The K. H. letter was genu-
ine. What matter how it was delivered? Massey was a key
man in her organization. His faith was slipping; something
must be done to hold him. The Masters swung into action
and wrote thousands of words on the subject. When the
argument finally died of exhaustion, Madame had lost the
cream of her English following, Massey and a number of
his friends. She had also provoked an articulate opposition
of a kind that she was least qualified to meet. The London
spiritualist weekly. Light, was an urbane and literate journal
with a sophisticated clientele. Its contributors included a
group of young university men, experts at persiflage, at ex-
ploiting absurdity, and at satirizing Madame’s latest news
release. In this guerrilla warfare H.P.B. was at a pitiful dis-
advantage. Losing her head and her temper, she let her op-
ponents egg her on into extravaganza, into contradicting
her own statements and claiming the impossible.

Madame’s next setback originated in plain carelessness or
weariness. Henry Kiddle, retired New York school principal
and lecturer on spiritualism, was surprised, on reading Sin-
nett’s Occult World during the summer of 1883, to find
nearly a page from one of his own speeches printed as a
quotation from Koot Hoomi. Checking back, he found that
his speech had been printed in the weekly Banner of Light
almost a year before the publication of Occult World. Kid-
dle received no reply from Sinnett to a polite inquiry, and
his letter to Light appeared on September 1, 1883. Beside it
in deadly parallel columns stood Koot Hoomi’s plagiarism

188

HOODOO YEARS

and the corresponding section of the earlier Kiddle speech.
The opening sentences indicate the virtual identity of the
two texts:

From speech by Henry Kiddle de- From K. H’s letter to Sinnett in

livered at Lake Pleasant camp Occult World (published June,

meeting, August 15, 1880, Banner 1881), p. 102. N.B. Passage was

of Light, September 18, 1880. deleted after 8th edition.

My friends, ideas rule the Ideas ride the world; and as
world; and as men’s minds re- mens minds receive new ideas ,

ceive new ideas, laying aside the laying aside the old and effete,

old and effete, the world ad- the world will advance, mighty

vances. Society rests upon them; revolutions will spring from

mighty revolutions spring from them, creeds and even powers

them; institutions crumble be- will crumble before their on -

fore their onward march. It is ward march, crushed by their

just as impossible to resist their irresistible force. It will be just

influx, when the time comes as impossible to resist their

as to stay the progress of the influence when the time comes

tide. ... as to stay the progress of the

tide. . . . 4

With her usual coolness under attack, H.P.B. tried to
laugh the matter off: impudent charges brought by fools
and Sadducees. “K. H. plagiarized from Kiddle! Ye gods
and little fishes. ... If they knew what it was to dictate
mentally a Precipitation as D. Khool says at 300 miles dis-
tance. . . . Plagiarize from the Banner of Light ! ! ! that
sweet spirits' slop-basin— the asses!" 5

But Madame found herself laughing all alone; this was
a serious matter and required explanation. General Morgan,
a venerable retired officer, came forward with a defense that
did more credit to his heart than to his judgment. He had
been permitted "to look behind the veil of the parallel pas-
sage mystery, and the whole affair is very satisfactorily ex-
plained" ... all very secret, he could only say that the
chela taking dictation from K. H. had stupidly omitted part

4 Ibid., p. 160.

5 Letters H.P.B., p. 66.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

of it.® Ultimately Koot Hoomi himself took up the charges,
but merely to say that he had been working too hard. “I was
physically very tired by a ride of forty-eight hours consecu-
tively and . . . half asleep. Besides this I had very impor-
tant business to attend to psychically” . . . and he was
not paying close attention. He had been dictating to an
inexperienced chela, who asked him to look over the letter
and correct it, but “I answered— imprudently, I confess—
‘Anyhow will do my boy; it is of no great importance if you
skip a few words.’ ” T This was not quite all the story. Some
months earlier the Master had been thinking about Ameri-
can spiritualists and, turning his mind in their direction,
had received a general impression of what was being said at
that moment at the Lake Pleasant camp meeting. Some de-
tached sentences from those speeches had remained im-
pressed on his memory. Hence the unconscious and quite
innocent confusion.

Light pounced upon the Kiddle charges, and they were
taken up by all the spiritualist press. It was the most widely
publicized and most damaging blunder H.P.B. had made.
When a new edition of Occult World went to press, Mad-
ame induced Sinnett to add an appendix presenting K. H’s
alibi letter. General Morgan’s letter, and a mass of other
material. In the end the Theosophists evidenced their dis-
comfiture by deleting the plagiarized passage.

There was a certain zest to devising alibis for efforts that
had misfired, such as the Eglinton and Massey letters, or
even to explaining away the Kiddle incident. More nerve-
racking for a woman of Madame Blavatsky’s unstable tem-
perament was the necessity to deal with the psychopathic
personalities that fluttered about her like maudlin moths.
Madame’s doctrines attracted men and women susceptible
to the appeal of psychological phenomena, a group that
overlapped into the fields of spiritualism, astrology, Rosi-

6 Theosophist, December 1883.

7 A. P. Sinnett: Occult World, 4th ed., Appendix, p. 145.

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HOODOO YEARS

crucianism, and innumerable esoteric cults. Viewing this
group with interest and concern, psychiatrists have given
repeated warnings of the potential danger of doctrines that
encourage a surrender to fantasy and the exclusion of real-
ity. Autistic is the technical word for this escape into fan-
tasy and Dr. Robert A. Clark of Western State Psychiatric
Institute, Pittsburgh, writes: “Theosophy . . . carries espe-
cial interest for the psychiatrist, because its doctrines in
their peculiar autistic richness remind one of the produc-
tions of many paranoiacs and schizophrenics, [and] because
of the attraction of these doctrines for certain personali-
ties.” Jung, Weygandt, and others have called attention to
the appeal of occult metaphysics to the psychopathically
disposed, and the danger that they may encourage and pre-
cipitate latent psychoses, especially paranoid schizophrenia
and hysteria.

The annals of the Theosophical Society seem to justify
the apprehension of the psychiatrists. Eccentric figures were
always turning up to enjoy the spotlight briefly. There was
the blue-eyed scion of the distinguished Mitford family of
Hampshire, who had turned Mussulman, wore his light
brown hair tied in a Grecian knot like a woman, and called
himself Mirza Murad Ali Beg. His Elixir of Life was fea-
tured in the Theosophist, and he was consulted as an au-
thority on the wicked devices of the Black Arts until one
day in the Wadhwan station, on a journey with H.P.B., he
snatched a sword from a sepoy and tried to kill her, scream-
ing that she and her Mahatmas were all devils. Understand-
ably, Madame wasted no sympathy on such cases, writing
to Sinnett of “Moorad Ali— who died raving mad, . . .
Bishen-lal and other vain, weak and selfish characters— who
end at the first temptation as raving madmen or commit
suicide.” Even gentle Master Koot Hoomi was annoyed
with them, complaining to Olcott: “Why must I remind
you of the three cases of insanity within seven months
among lay-chelas, not to mention one’s turning a thief?”

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

2. THE PHOENIX VENTURE

(1882-3)

Another calamity was impending. The proprietors of the
Pioneer notified Sinnett in August 1882 that his contract
would not be renewed when it expired at the end of another
year. His crusading enthusiasm on the side of the angels—
Mahatmas— had, they felt, made the paper ridiculous and
was pulling down circulation. Their repeated efforts to re-
strain him had not been effective. Poor Sinnett had been
steering a difficult course. On one side he was alienating
the owners of his paper; on the other he was hounded by
implacable Mahatmas.

Greed for publicity was a weakness with H.P.B. She
could not remember that the press, like most men, is coy
and backs away if courted too openly. English journals in
India were almost unanimously hostile to her, and H.P.B.,
instead of learning to handle them with finesse, called them
barnyard names, such as “that skunk of a sewer,” and worse.
Irritated by their insinuations as to her finances and their
recurring Russian spy stories, she would dash off a letter to
Sinnett calling for another column of propaganda in The
Pioneer. If he demurred, the Masters stepped in: he must
print this— or else. In spite of the frowns of his owners, the
ribbing of his associates, his own better judgment, he had
given way time and again, and now it had cost him his job.
Rushing to the Old Lady in distress, he cried: “What are
the Masters going to do about it?” Surely they would not
permit such injustice to result from his loyalty and obe-
dience.

Unhesitatingly H.P.B. asserted that the Masters would
take care of him; she would keep him in India, come what
might. The Hume and Massey defections had hurt her
pride, but she would be seriously handicapped by the loss
of Sinnett. He knew the ropes, had the entree, could be flat-

192

HOODOO YEARS

tered or bullied into endless publicity. She must have gri-
maced if she remembered Gerry Brown and her efforts with
some New York journalists. She seemed to bestow the kiss
of death upon her publicity agents.

Using Sinnett’s emergency as her pretext, she launched,
during the autumn of 1882, a project she had secretly cher-
ished for years. She would establish her own newspaper, or
at least one in which she could be a controlling factor. Os-
tensibly the Masters sponsored The Phoenix. H.P.B. kept
in the background and pretended to know nothing except
that she had been ordered to help raise money. Master K.
H. wrote Sinnett with breezy assurance. It should be an
English language newspaper, financed by Indian capital to
offset the British controlled press; it should not take more
than a few weeks to raise the required five lakhs of rupees
($170,000) from Indian princes and capitalists. The months
slipped by and The Phoenix remained nothing but talk.
“Not a pie [one-sixth of one cent] had been paid in!” ex-
claimed H.P.B. Finding his position in The Pioneer office
embarrassing, Sinnett resigned before his year was up and
sailed for England in March, 1883.

On the eve of Sinnett’s departure, the Mahatmas be-
stirred themselves. Occult laws forbade their providing ac-
tual cash; neither could they solicit subscriptions. But they
made a magnificent gesture. The inaccessible Maha Chohan
permitted himself to be interviewed by Koot Hoomi, who
forwarded to Sinnett a memorandum written in ornate
style, pledging the Chohan’s support and suggesting terms
for editorial control and division of profit. Beyond this, ac-
cording to H.P.B’s letters to Sinnett, she limited herself to
interviewing her pet rajahs, who did not respond very well,
and to goading Olcott into raising the money single handed.

The Colonel had no more chance of raising $170,000
than a snowbird, but he knew how to meet difficult situa-
tions, bow his head, and let them roar past. He did not over-
exert himself to bring back to India a man who had always

193

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

shown him contemptuous disdain. In his day-by-day ac-
count of his tour of India that year, he never mentioned the
Phoenix venture. Perhaps he never even heard of it!

In addition to the problem of financing the paper, the
Masters faced that of securing a public to read it. The slen-
der membership of the Theosophical Society would not
carry them far, and they cast about for a cause that needed
publicity. Solvent Causes do not grow on every bush. When
H.P.B. found her cause, she was ready to make any com-
promise. But how about Sinnett? Here she had the Master
K. H. step in: he described the project as “a plan of action
purely Asiatic in character ... it may be found too Jesuit-
ical to suit your taste.” K. H. conceded that the proposition
might shock “European, cultured notions of right and
wrong ... a somewhat unclean work— from the European
standpoint,” but he also reminded Sinnett that the true
occultist does not hesitate to sacrifice even his reputation
and his honor for the sake of the greater good. He must
never forget the existence of occult antidotes beyond his
comprehension!

The proposal was astonishingly cynical. The recent defeat
of the Ilbert Bill had been followed by an agitation for a
rent bill designed to correct gross inequalities of taxation
under which the Bengal peasants had suffered for more
than a century. The chiefs and zamindars (landlords) of
Behar aggressively opposed the new bill and were ready to
subscribe one and one half lakhs down, and as much more
on Sinnett’s return to India, if he would agree to make The
Phoenix the mouthpiece of their opposition.

Admitting that the zamindars were using “infamous”
methods in building their lobby, K. H. argued that there
was no more dishonor in an editor’s supporting such a group
than in a lawyer’s accepting a criminal as a client. He re-
minded Sinnett that a conservative editor who trimmed his
sails to conform to a conservative Viceroy’s policy would
be in an advantageous position for the future. He closed

194

HOODOO YEARS

with a threat. If this Phoenix project failed, he, K. H.,
would not be permitted to continue his work with the
European element; they were too earthbound, handicapped
by their non-ascetic mode of life and their western standards
of honor. He would continue to take an interest in Hindus
and other Asiatics, but not in Europeans. If Sinnett rejects
the zamindar’ s offer, Sinnett and the Mahatmas “will have
to part.”

Sinnett was deeply shaken. An experienced newspaper
man who had climbed to the top rung in India, forty-three
years old, and far from a romantic idealist, he was staggered
by the duplicity of K. H’s letter. He challenged the project
on practical grounds. Opposition to the rent bill, he wrote
on August 16, 1883, would alienate popular sympathy and
ruin their chance of commercial success, “and a paper which
is a commercial failure can have very little political weight.”
He told K. H. that he would feel himself a “blackguard” to
accept the proposal and was confident that it would cost
him all future political influence.

And yet— and yet, the bleak alternative stared him in the
face, as K. H. had mercilessly written it down. If the news-
paper failed, “we will have to part.” He would lose access
to the Masters, which had become the most precious thing
in his life. Many a man is subject to this haunting sense of
inescapable loneliness. Dance and sing as he may, the night
comes to an end, the sun rises, the party is over. It is fear
of that ultimate aloneness that drives men and women into
fantastic efforts to escape it by means of innumerable de-
vices, liquor, love, mystical visions. In their hearts they are
seeking reassurance, something permanent in a world of
change. Sinnett, a man of private means who had made a
success in his field and was devoted to his wife and son,
was so undermined by this need of a support outside him-
self that he was driven to an extremity of self-abasement.
He accepted the zamindars’ offer, saying that he would cast
the moral responsibility upon the Master K. H.

195

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

But Sinnett had his humiliation for nothing. H.P.B. had
no way of swinging such a deal. K. H’s curious disparage-
ment of the project and Olcott’s ignoring it suggest that it
may never have existed outside of her imagination, a straw
man used to test Sinnett and then be knocked down. Sin-
nett had stepped into a trap that ought in the future to pre-
clude his talking too much about the code of an English
gentleman. Now H.P.B. was concerned only to find a plau-
sible excuse for letting the proposal die. She seized upon a
recent letter of Sinnett’s to the London Times on the po-
litical situation in India: no doubt noble and well meant, it
had not been well received by the zamindars. As a result a
dozen princes had canceled their subscriptions to The
Phoenix, a total of at least fifty thousand rupees.

On receipt of Sinnett’s letter accepting the zamindars’
offer, which she was not supposed to read, but to forward
to K. H., Madame turned on Sinnett with wilful cruelty.
She had just heard in a roundabout way the details of the
proposal, she wrote, on September 14, 1883, and she was
outraged; had not K. H. himself pronounced it “infamous”?
She was only a woman, ignorant of politics, probably a fool
about many things, so she had to keep quiet. But she must
speak for once because she was horrified. How could he so
degrade himself? No one wanted him to return to India
more than she, but not at the price of his honor and repu-
tation. Evidently her notions of honor and justice were dif-
ferent from those of some other people! She would rather
never see him again, rather ruin the Society, than be a party
to such a devilish transaction, starving teeming millions
to satisfy the greed of a few Shylocks:

Je donne ma langue aux chiens [I give up]. Do not blame me.

I have done my best, but since the zamindars are preferred, l

have nothing more to say. Buss [that’s all].

The final touch of humiliation came when Koot Hoomi
coolly announced in September 1883 that the Mahatmas

196

HOODOO YEARS

had withdrawn their support of The Phoenix. It was Sin-
nett’s fault for saying that he would put the moral responsi-
bility of his decision on the shoulders of K. H. Sinnett had
misunderstood the law of Karma, if he imagined that it
permitted him to wriggle out of responsibility. No one was
allowed to interfere with Sinnett’s destiny by helping him
reach decisions. At the end, K. H. relented a little and gave
the poor man a grain of comfort: he congratulated Sinnett
on carrying off a difficult situation well, for he had been
quite right in accepting the zamindars’ offer. In recognition
of his passing this difficult test, the Maha Chohan himself
had been pleased to cancel his order forbidding K. H. to
continue relations with him. Letters to all other Europeans
were forbidden; Sinnett alone was exempt. So much Sinnett
had salvaged, but at what a price ! 8

In the course of this Phoenix venture, H.P.B. revealed a
good deal about herself. She had used the project to estab-
lish the reality of the Mahatmas. She did not even know
what they were planning and, crowning proof, she com-
pletely disagreed with them on the ethics involved. Who
could ask for more dramatic evidence that H.P.B. did not
write the Mahatmas’ letters? The project demonstrated her
ruthlessness with her closest associates and supplied an-
other measure of her strange power to hold their faith and
loyalty. The venture was particularly significant as an ex-
ample of the blind-obedience pressure machine in action.
Sinnett earned final commendation and reward from the
Maha Chohan himself by surrendering his judgment, his
will power, his individuality. It is a familiar issue that the
world has followed with passionate concern in recent years.
Madame’s Universal Brotherhood amendment to her con-
stitution sounded well and she used it adroitly, but she was
animated by a dictator's will-to-power and she demanded a
fascist type of obedience from her devotees.

8 Mahatma Letters, Sec. IV, "The Phoenix Venture,” pp. 377-96. Let -
ten H.P.B., p. 85.

197

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

3. TIBET

(1882)

Under fire, H.P.B. responded to emergencies with coolness
and daring. Between times she surrendered to lamentations
and hysterics; she went to bed, wrote farewells to her
friends, summoned her doctors and chelas for deathbed
scenes. All was over, Bright's disease, blood turning into
water and “forming into bags a la kangaroo,” ears swollen,
ulcers. She was so nervous that the ghostly patter of Bab-
ula’s bare feet gave her palpitations that the doctor said
might carry her off at any minute. This time, she wrote the
Sinnetts in September 1882, it really was the end, and she
implored them not to remember her as an impostor. Her
yammering was in part the expression of a hysterical nature,
but it was also a form of magician’s patter to distract at-
tention. She was secretly hard at work planning her next
act. Impatient and irritable in trivial affairs, she had inex-
haustible patience under disaster. The glamour wrapped
around occultism disguises the prosaic fact that patience
and perseverance are as essential to success in this field
as in sport, science, or the arts. H.P.B. owed as much to
her indomitable spirit as to any peculiar psychic endow-
ment.

The close of the steamy, depressing hot weather of 1882
found H.P.B. physically exhausted; there had been no in-
vitation to Simla this year to break the long tension of the
rains. Yet, smarting under a merciless succession of rebuffs,
she had mapped out her next year’s program on a more am-
bitious scale than ever. Adyar would solve all problems. M.
Coulomb, the handy man would arrange better facilities for
phenomena, and Subba Row close by would advise her on
metaphysics and yoga. They were moving to the new home
in December 1882. She filled in the interval with a heroic-
sized edition of her most successful device for handling 01-

198

HOODOO YEARS

cott. The Masters, instead of coming to see her sent word
that they would carry Upasika [H.P.B.] off to Tibet for a
month’s rest.

The several accounts of the journey in September 1882
are contradictory. H.P.B. insisted on going unattended, but
a Voice told Ramaswamier and other chelas to drop every-
thing and follow her. S. Ramaswamier, a minor clerk in the
district of Tinevelly, took his chelaship seriously. For two
years he had risen at four every morning to meditate for
two hours, gazing steadfastly at an iron pin that he sought
to move by will power. No luck so far, but perhaps he would
gain new reserves of will power on this trip? As it turned
out, he was not permitted to enter Tibet. But in Sikkim on
the border of British India, he encountered a Mahatma
riding horseback and wearing a fur-lined yellow mantle who
bespoke him kindly. Ramaswamier’s description of his trip.
How a Chela Found his Guru, became a Theosophical
classic.

Even H.P.B. was not privileged to cross the border into
Tibet. The Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi met her at a
hideout in Sikkim, and the proposed month was whittled
down to overnight. This was H.P.B’s only attempt during
her six years’ residence in India to appear to enter Tibet,
and she did not even cross the border. However, she jauntily
described the journey with snatches of nostalgic remi-
niscence:

Oh the blessed, blessed two days! It was like the old times.
The same kind of wooden hut, a box divided into three compart-
ments for rooms, and standing in a jungle on four pelicans’ legs;
the same yellow chelas gliding noiselessly ; the same eternal gul-
gul-gul sound of my Boss’ inextinguishable chelum pipe; the old
familiar sweet voice of your K. H. ( whose voice is still sweeter
and face still thinner and more transparent), the same entourage
for furniture— skins and yak-tail stuffed pillows and dishes for
salt-tea, etc. . . . Boss gives you his love. I saw him last night
at the Lama’s house. 9

9 Letters H.P.B., p. 38.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

For two months H.P.B. stayed on at Darjeeling, which
was by no means Tibet, but had to do. As always, a group
of Hindu chelas gathered round and she kept them at her
feet, mystified and fascinated. At last, rested in body, mor-
ale improved, feeling her prestige restored by the journey,
she returned to Bombay in November to take leave of the
Crow’s Nest and accompany her treasures and parapher-
nalia across India to Adyar. She was bursting with new
plans, defiantly ambitious plans that combined the versa-
tility of genius with paranoiac delusions of grandeur.

200

CHAPTER XIII

THE WORLD IN HER SLING
( Mi— 4)

IN less than a decade H.P.B. had climbed from a charity
home for working women in the New York slums to a na-
bob’s estate in southern India. An avenue of ancient mango
and banyan trees curved lazily up to the porte-cochere;
broad verandas supported by white pillars gave an air of
tropical opulence. The compound was like a small village
with its brick stables, coach house, swimming-bath and
godowns (storehouses). Two bungalows on the river bank
were used as guesthouses. A plantation of casuarina trees
spread greenness and dark shadows across the blazing sun-
shine. The recent opening of a railway to the Nilgiri Hills,
bringing the hill station of Ootacamund, known as Ooty,
within easy reach, had thrown several estates on the market.
Subba Row had picked this one up for only three thousand
dollars, a sum H.P.B. had no trouble in raising among her
devotees. On her arrival in December 1882, Madame in-
spected the compound complacently; after many strange
turnings she was coming back at last to something of the
pomp and circumstance to which she was born. She had her
plans ready for M. Coulomb to go to work at once.

Instead of taking for her own use one of the master bed-

201

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

rooms on the cooler ground floor or a bungalow on the river
bank, H.P.B. chose to remodel a single storage room on the
roof. Bricking up a window in the west wall, M. Coulomb
built an almirah (cupboard) over the former opening. In
this comer H.P.B. hid her bed behind long curtains, rarely
used in India because they shut out the air. Against the out-
side west wall of this room, M. Coulomb built an addition
known as the Shrine Room, the heart and center of H.PJB’s
secret plans. Its only door opened into her bedroom; she
had the walls covered with red and white striped calico, re-
calling the red muslin lined closet of the Societe Spirite in
Cairo. The strips of calico met in the center of the bricked-
up window over an opening in the brick work; through it
one could reach into the almirah beside H.P.B’s bed behind
the curtains.

In this secret room over the bricked-up window hung the
Shrine, the most ambitious of H.P.B’s efforts to simulate
magic and in the end, the cause of greatest grief. The Shrine
was a wooden cupboard with doors, made of cedar-wood,
lacquered black to look like ebony. It was about four feet
high and wide and twelve inches deep. Hanging on four
wires from hooks in the ceiling, it was placed so that three
sliding panels in the back came over the aperture into the
bed alcove. An awning-covered terrace all around the roof
gave access to the staircase at the northwest comer; tucked
in at the head of these stairs were tiny rooms for H.P.B’s
servant Babula and her most trusted chela, Damodar.

In February 1883, Olcott was sent off on a tour of India
(to raise money for The Phoenix?) and the mystery of M.
Coulomb’s hammering and sawing was then revealed. The
chelas, carefully indoctrinated, were at last permitted to
climb the stairs and approach the Shrine Room. This was
holy ground. Long curtains hiding the Shrine were not
parted until the kneeling chelas were ready to prostrate
themselves and bury their faces in their crossed arms in Ori-
ental fashion.

202

THE WORLD IN HER SLING

The Shrine was soon processing Mahatma letters to the
faithful half a dozen at a time. Sometimes they answered
definite questions, but the majority were benedictions or
vague promises of advancement along the paths of occult-
ism. As soon as the letters were running smoothly, H.P.B.
planned more ambitious effects. The Colonel, who would
return from his tour at the end of May, had not yet seen
the Shrine. Although he still believed in the Mahatmas, his
enthusiasm for phenomena had cooled, and H.P.B. foresaw
that he might be unsympathetic to this latest improvement.
It did not really matter, but, like all showmen, H.P.B. was
sensitive to audience approval, and she appreciated a cer-
tain value in his effort to preserve illusions.

To give Olcott a pleasant first impression of the Shrine,
H.P.B. made him the hero of the occasion. Followed by a
procession of solemn chelas, H.P.B. ceremoniously led the
Colonel up the stairs, through her sitting room, and into the
Shrine Room. Slowly the long curtains were drawn back
and, in the half-light of flickering wax tapers the Shrine
stood revealed. Its doors were opened, incense burned.
Salaams, prostrations, puja, the doors were closed . . .
more incense and puja . . . again the doors of the Shrine
were opened. There stood a pair of slender vases of tortoise
shell and lacquer with a message that they were a token of
affectionate regard from the Masters to their loyal servant
Henry Olcott. The pleasure of standing in the spotlight was
sufficient to enable Olcott to pretend that it was all real. Ac-
cepting the adulation of the chelas, most of whom he de-
spised, he could forget his humiliations for the moment.
Tears welling in his eyes, he hugged the vases close. His
voice trembled so that he could not speak.

For the approaching hot weather H.P.B. planned an even
more striking demonstration: the Shrine was to function in
her absence, proving that she had nothing to do with it,
for Madame never seemed to realize that skeptics might
easily suspect her of using confederates! She had been in-

203

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

vited for the hot weather of 1883 to Ooty as the guest of her
gallant defender in the Kiddle controversy, Major General
Morgan. The General and his wife, enthusiastic spiritual-
ists, hoped that Madame would provide some diverting
marvels before the summer was over. They were not disap-
pointed. Ooty, summer capital of southern India, proved
even more susceptible than Simla. When H.P.B. made fairy
bells tinkle beneath the cummerbund of the Chief Secre-
tary of the Province, the Hon. F. E. Webster, he thrust his
hand into the pocket of his white linen dinner coat, and
brought forth a letter addressed to himself that he could
have sworn was in his own handwriting— except that he had
never seen it before. This incident suggests H.P.B’s skill
with handwriting and throws a sidelight on the penmanship
controversy over the Mahatma letters.

In London, Sinnett was sitting out an unhappy death
watch with The Phoenix during that summer of 1883. He
had given the Mahatmas a year to get the paper started and
had promised to hold himself at their disposal for that pe-
riod. Under the circumstances, Madame’s descriptions of
her social triumphs in Ooty must have jarred upon him. He
would have been proud, she wrote, to see the Old Lady

presiding Juno- and Minerva-like over the whole of the Ooty
high officials, right up to the Grand Muff [Sir Mountstuart Grant
Duff, Governor of Madras] and Mrs. Muff themselves. . . .
Everybody here bombarding me with invitations to receptions,
balls, dinners . . . kissing my hands, the lioness of the day. My
name put on the Government Book in Government House in big
letters before I had condescended to return Mrs. G. Duff’s visit.

My graceful stately person clad in half Tibetan, half nightdress
fashion, sitting in the glory of her Calmuck beauty at the Gov-
ernor’s and Carmichaels’ dinner parties; H.P.B. positively courted
by the aide de camps. Old “Upasika” hanging like a gigantic
nightmare on the gracefully rounded elbows of members of the
Council in pumps and swallow tail evening dress and silk stock-
ings, smelling brandy and soda enough to kill a Tibetan yak. 1

1 Letters H.P.B., p. 45.

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THE WORLD IN HER SLING

Pleased with herself and with Ooty, Madame repeated
her trick de luxe, used only once before to impress Mrs.
Sinnett: she duplicated a sapphire ring she was wearing.
This time Mrs. Carmichael, wife of Ooty’s second-in-
command, was the beneficiary. She wanted to join the The-
osophists, but her husband objected: “David is afraid.” An-
gling for the Carmichaels, H.P.B. invested in another
sapphire, but it was money wasted. Canny David continued
to fear, and, as Olcott sourly commented, Mrs. C. kept the
ring!

The summer’s coup de thedtre was reserved for Mad-
ame’s host, General Morgan. Assuming that he would visit
Madras during the summer, H.P.B., before leaving Adyar,
impressed upon Madame Coulomb that she must put on
her company manners for the General. He would probably
drive out to see the portrait of Koot Hoomi hanging in the
Shrine. While showing it to him, Madame Coulomb must
contrive to knock a china pin tray off the Shrine shelf. In
great distress, explaining that it had been especially prized
by H.P.B., she would wrap the pieces in a bit of silk, lay
them in the Shrine, and close the doors. Later, making an
excuse to open the doors, they would find that the Masters
had miraculously mended the tray, for there it was to stand
as good as new, which indeed it was. The mechanism was
very simple: Madame Coulomb bought a pair of identical
pin trays. It went off without a hitch, and made a profound
impression on the General, whose high rank impressed
everyone else.

2. PER ASPERA AD ASTRA

(1883)

Three months in the hills, her social success, and the fool-
proof performance of the Shrine thus far, combined to give
H.P.B. fresh confidence. She could forget the casualties of
the previous year when she had struggled around the clock
grinding out Theosophical profundities for Hume. What

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

had that gotten her? Better one miraculous pin tray than a
cycle of metaphysics.

Winding up his tour of India in time to meet Madame
at Ooty in late September 1883, Olcott accompanied her
back to Adyar. They were met at all the station stops en
route by scores of sick people who crowded about Olcott
to be cured by laying on of hands. He had “treated” eight
thousand persons in the past year according to his secre-
tary, and was working up a promising side line. For the
first time H.P.B. saw her partner the center of these eager,
jostling groups, felt the high-strung tension of the occasion.
He was flattered by the interest with which she watched
him, and may or may not have traced cause and effect
when, a few days later, he received an order from the Mas-
ter to discontinue all further healing as being too much of
a strain. Olcott’s health was excellent, but one does not
argue about orders from the Masters.

Perhaps it was to divert Olcott from this new frustration
that H.P.B. entrusted her latest neophyte, William T.
Brown, to his care on an autumn tour through the Punjab.
Sahibs, even Theosophical sahibs, enjoy the pageantry of
white importance in the Orient. Olcott traveled as the
President of the Theosophical Society, and was entertained
by Indian princes with medieval pomp, elephants and gar-
lands and nautch girls. In British India, he set up his camp
or took over the local dak bungalow and made himself com-
fortable with the elaborate impedimenta standardized by
British administrators: not only the Sahib’s food, water,
bedding, clothing, and mosquito nets, but also his desk,
chair, records, books, and papers, all carried as hand lug-
gage by swarming coolies. The Colonel issued Presidential
Orders as he went along, combining the circumlocution of
the Orient with the rotundity of legal phrases. On this trip,
his party included W. T. Brown, the neophyte; the Colo-
nel’s secretary; his bearer; Brown’s bearer; the staff of coolies
picked up at each stop, and H.P.B’s trusted chela, Damo-

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dar, who had won spectacular recognition as an initiate. In
his astral body Damodar made nightly trips to the ashrama
of his Master in Tibet. He could also be depended upon
to report to H.P.B. any irregularities or breaches of the
Master's orders.

Advance schedules of these tours were published in The
Theosophist, and several months earlier the Colonel had
agreed to treat two paralyzed boys at Moradabad. Now, by
order of the Mahatmas, he must arbitrarily refuse to touch
them. Olcott was hardened to this sort of thing, and grimly
persisted that he could do nothing in spite of the grief-
stricken family weeping at his feet. This was too much for
Damodar, who offered to visit Adyar (one thousand miles
distant) that night and ask H.P.B. to intercede with the
Masters. When ready to make his aerial flight, Damodar
went into a room by himself. A few minutes later he re-
joined the party saying that he had been to Adyar and had
talked to Madame. Sure enough, the next day, November
10, 1883, Damodar received a telegram from Master Morya:

Henry can try the parties once, leaving strongJLy mesmerized
Cajapati oil to rub in three times daily to relieve sufferers. Karma
cannot be interfered with. M.

After that the supernormal crackled over Olcott’s party
like live wires flashing in a storm. They reached Lahore and
the grand climax on November 19. After salaams, addresses
of welcome, bouquets, and garlands at the railroad station,
they were escorted to their camp, six tents and four shami-
anahs pitched on the maidan north of the city. That night,
roused from sleep by a hand on his arm, Olcott heard the
words “Do you not remember me?” and recognized the
mild tones of K. H. It was indeed the Master, Koot Hoomi,
who passed from tent to tent, waking them, insisting that
they remain quietly in bed, chatting briefly with each one
in his kind, sweet voice, leaving with each a letter wrapped
Oriental fashion in a square of silk, and stealing away swiftly

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT
before they were well awake. Olcott was jubilant. Brown,
more reserved, was also swept off his feet. Attentions from
the Masters had almost a currency value among the Theo-
sophical elite. A had twice seen the Masters, but at a dis-
tance; B, three times; C was a four-letter man. This Lahore
experience was unique and put the trio in a class by them-
selves. The Adventures in Wonderland continued, and
Damodar was singled out for further marvels: a series of
exclusive interviews with the Master lasting three hours
each and, finally, his own disappearance for forty-eight
hours. On his return he told them briefly that he had made
a flying trip to Tibet.

In spite of H.P.B’s insistence upon a long and arduous
apprenticeship, the Mahatmas played favorites shamelessly.
If H.P.B. took a fancy to a man, anything could happen—
and did. It caused heartburning and unhappiness. Sinnett,
far away in London, read in The Theosophist about the ex-
traordinary favors showered upon Brown, and wrote in
sharply: he had never been permitted even to see a Master,
in spite of years of devoted service. How about it? H.P.B.
took the line that the Masters did as they pleased, and that
she was as much put out as Sinnett. “Why should Brown
be so favored?” she echoed. “He may be a good man but
what the devil has he done so holy and good?” She hinted
at sinister omens, earthquakes and a blue-and-green sun.
“Ye gods and powers of hell, we didn’t have work and trou-
ble enough!” she complained.

Olcott and Brown promptly turned their experiences into
propaganda, describing the visit of Koot Hoomi over and
over again, working themselves into a mounting fervor. The
privilege of beholding and conversing with a Master was the
supreme joy life could offer, Olcott told his audiences, for
in his benign presence the mind and heart expanded like a
flower in the sun:

He is there, standing beside my bed, his face aglow with a
smile; I see it in the chiaroscuro of the back-light ... his noble

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THE WORLD IN HER SLING

form lingers an instant in the tent door and he gives a last
friendly glance to me and is gone. It is not much as to time, but
its memory will last my life through . 2

Olcott, Brown, and Damodar returned to Adyar as ex-
alted as though from a mount of transfiguration. The props
were starkly simple: a candlelit glimpse, while half-awake,
of a figure swathed in draperies and uttering platitudes had
been transmuted into a moment of ecstasy. In spite of the
extraordinary dispensations, Brown’s faith was short-lived.
For a few months he wrote and lectured ardently. But
H.P.B’s constant use of coincidence, the alleged misunder-
standings to explain away recurring charges of fraud, wore
him down. Before long he angrily repudiated Theosophy
and tried a succession of Rosicrucian and occultist cults,
one after another. He ended his quest in the arms of the
Roman Catholic Church. He always remembered his mo-
ments of ecstasy, but they were a curdled memory, and he
denounced H.P.B. with the bitterness of a man who knew
that he had made himself ridiculous. 8

3. “it is all glamour”

(1883-4)

The bold but crooked line of Madame Blavatsky’s adventur-
ous life reached its apogee in the years 1883-4. She had now
established herself in a handsome estate. She had founded
a mgazine that, supplemented by the contributions of devo-
tees, paid her a comfortable living. She had organized the
Theosophical Society, which remained chiefly a talking-
point, something to publish her magazine about— for its
membership continued as anemic as in the United States.
Among the Indians the Society appealed to a limited white-
collar group, many of whom watched with raised eyebrows
as this Western woman fumbled with their doctrines and

2 Olcott: O.D.L., III, 40.

* WT. Brown: My Life.

ReHgio-Philosophical Journal, July 23, 1887.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

claimed to achieve unprecedented powers. It was the British
in India who, in spite of her poor start, furnished most of
her dues-paying members and her international prestige.
She was already beginning to be a world figure, making
Adyar a port of call for globe-trotters with mystical leanings,
authors, lecturers, cognoscenti.

The enduring fame of H.P.B. and her distinctive contri-
bution lay in the field of occultism. Despite her flounder-
ing, she originated or adapted several daring innovations:
a hierarchy of supernatural Mahatmas; a cosmology offering
comfort to the frustrated: reincarnation, a chance to come
back to this world and show them, and magic, its lure and
appeal restored to a drab and materialistic world; an astral
postoffice bringing the Mahatmas very near, and a Shrine
where the Mahatmas performed miracles.

Only the first two features have survived. The Shrine
lasted less than two years. The astral postoffice became an
instrument of such flagrant fraud that it was outlawed
shortly after Madame's death. Depending largely on
H.P.B’s power of suggestion, on legerdemain, and on the
use of confederates, her phenomena could not survive her
as an effective system. Her use of phenomena and her treat-
ment of the abstraction Truth are basic points in judging
her life and achievement. Boldly she took the text “There
is no religion higher than the Truth” as the motto of her
Society.

If her phenomena had been authentic, the world might
well have granted her the instant acclaim it gave, half a
century later, to phenomena involving more revolutionary
values than even she dared to imagine, the use of atomic
energy. H.P.B’s phenomena were not true, and it is not pos-
sible to believe that her claims were made in good faith.
The verdict upon Madame Blavatsky must hinge upon
these two facts. It is nonetheless an object lesson in the
resourcefulness of human nature to trace her fantastic de-
vices, her flashes of genius alternating with total lack of

210

'*<■

, - »

In 1882 Madame Blavatsky moved the Theosophical headquarters to Adyar , near Madras , and there

they have remained

Portrait of Madame Blavatsky by Schmiechen, painted in London

in 1884

THE WORLD IN HER SLING

human insight, and, over all, the magnetic charm that en-
abled this strange Old Woman to build herself into a world
figure balanced upon something even less substantial than a
house of cards.

Although the legend of her phenomena creates a helpful
atmosphere, it is the writings and philosophy of H.P.B. that
command allegiance today. Scholars dismiss her major
works as jumbles of inaccurate borrowings. Such criticism
is immaterial. H.P.B. reached back to the basic human ap-
peal that makes Superman— very like her Mahatmas— a su-
perfavorite in the funnies, that makes children love Santa
Claus and fairy tales, and that makes primitive people every-
where believe in goblins, ghosts, and magic. Another vital
element in Madame’s system was the establishment of her
own dictatorial power. Painfully the world has learned how
far and how fast mediocre men can go under this system.
Instead of stormtroopers, Madame used a hierarchy of mari-
onette Mahatmas with the secret strings all in her own
hands. Theosophists, being dreamers and intellectuals, are
not sufficiently ruthless to make the most of the pattern.

At some time during her six years in India, H.P.B. aban-
doned her original quest for the ultimate secrets of occult-
ism. She had imagined them as neatly set out as a diplo-
matic code, hidden away like a pirate's buried treasure.
With mellow cynicism she had come to realize that these
arcana existed chiefly in the eyes of the beholder. She tried
to protect her credulous followers from disillusionment,
but she could not resist startling more sophisticated friends
by deliberately letting the cat out of the bag.

Moncure Conway, Virginia born, Harvard educated, had
so charmed a group of English liberals that they brought
him to London during the 1860’s to build up a Unitarian
congregation at the South Place Chapel. H.P.B., en route
from New York to India, met Mr. and Mrs. Conway
through some spiritualists, members of his church. Mrs.
Conway had not liked Madame, but with Conway there was

211

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

an instant click: he found her amusing, entertaining. She
had the air, he said, of a woman who had tried every experi-
ence. In 1883 on his way round the world Conway remem-
bered Madame, and visited Adyar. After dinner, she took
him and her chelas upstairs to see the Shrine, but by order
of the Masters there were no phenomena that evening.
Presently, H.P.B. dismissed her little flock of sheep; closing
the door of her sitting room, she and Conway lit cigarettes
and settled back for a frank talk. Hoping that she might
relent, Conway expressed his keen disappointment about
the phenomena. He told her that his congregation was a
picked group of liberals, always hospitable to new ideas and
deeply interested in her work, and he asked her to tell him
the truth about her marvels. H.P.B. looked him straight in
the eyes and waited while she puffed her cigarette. She be-
gan deliberately, picking her words; he was a public teacher
and she was going to tell him the truth:

It is all glamour. People think they see what they do not see.

That is the whole of it.

Conway was impressed by the sincerity of her manner, but
commented that she left unanswered the problem of how
to cast the glamour! Nor did it escape him that she was not
so indiscreet as to make this statement before witnesses. 4

Very rarely, with perhaps half a dozen men, did Madame
drop the domino that a high priestess of occultism must
wear. Her dropping it at all proved that this past master of
making others believe did not fool herself. On the contrary,
except for her rages, she maintained a certain detachment,
watching life with a wry humor. She tried to choose her
confidants carefully among the cynical and disillusioned,
but she met few men as utterly without illusions as herself.
She once told her Russian friend, Solovyov:

The vast majority of people who are reckoned clever . . . are

hopeless fools. If you only knew what lions and eagles in every

4 Moncure Conway: My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East, p.
194 .

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THE WORLD IN HER SLING

part of the world have turned into asses at my whistle, and have

obediently wagged their long ears in time as I piped the tune. 8

Texas Guinan, a New York night-club hostess of the 1920’s,
greeted everyone with the magical phrase “Hello Sucker”;
all the tired business men and their not-so-tired ladies loved
it. H.P.B. knew how to use this appeal with an Old-World
subtlety and allure.

While Fortune smiled, H.P.B. again visited Europe in
spite of the difficulty of leaving Adyar. The Shrine must be
protected from prying eyes, and delegation of authority
bred conflict. Ignoring bitter protests, H.P.B. as usual
turned everything over to the Coulombs— funds, purchas-
ing power, supervision of servants, even custody of the
Shrine. As a concession to an inflammable situation, she
left at Adyar her pet chela, Damodar, with orders to keep
her informed and to do what he could to restrain Madame
Coulomb.

Madame’s party included the Colonel, her chela, Mohini
Chatterji, and her servant Babula. Like Damodar, Mohini
was a Brahman; unlike Damodar, he was a graduate of the
University of Calcutta, and a young man of exceptional
charm with finely modeled head and light brunette color-
ing. The rigors of his ascetic training had left a detachment
of manner, a wistfulness of melting brown eyes that vastly
intrigued the ladies. He wore his exotic robes and his crisp,
fastidious turbans with distinction. He became a pioneer
Swami in western drawing rooms.

In spite of the rush of final preparations, H.P.B. made
time to go sightseeing with a just-arrived neophyte from the
American Far West, Dr. Franz Hartmann of Denver, Colo-
rado, German-born, physician, author, philosopher, and
Rosicrucian, one of the ablest of the Theosophists. He had
been lured half way around the globe by reading Madame
Blavatsky’s magazine and Sinnett’s Occult World. She car-

s Solovyoff: p. 72.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ried him off in February 1884, to visit some of her rajahs,
the Thakur Sahib of Wadhwan and Prince Harisinghji.
These visits worked two ways: the Westerners were im-
pressed by the titles and pomp of the princelings, and,
white prestige being what it is or was, the rajahs were de-
lighted to entertain distinguished Europeans. On such occa-
sions H.P.B. was liberal with phenomena, and her hosts
usually made cash contributions to the Cause before she
left. These visits were an important source of revenue, es-
pecially for such unbudgeted items as a sudden trip to
Europe.

Olcott was in Ceylon; the Sinhalese were paying his ex-
penses in return for his presenting their petition on religio-
political grievances to the Foreign Office in London. Stop-
ping off at Adyar, the Colonel tried to appease the unhappy
compound by appointing a committee of trustees to be
nominally responsible in the absence of the Founders and
to cope with the summary powers H.P.B. had granted to
Madame Coulomb. This committee included Dr. Hart-
mann; Saint George Lane Fox, London engineer, wealthy,
mystical, another newly arrived neophyte; Damodar; Subba
Row, and Monsieur Coulomb!

Awaiting H.P.B. in Nice, where she landed on March 12,
1884, were invitations to visit several titled ladies, aspirants
in occultism. The scales were tipping. Curiosity about Mad-
ame’s phenomena outweighed the outraged morality that
had ostracised her. Attended by her cavaliers and servant,
H.P.B. began her tour of European bigwigs by visiting Lady
Caithness, the Duchesse de Pomar in her magnificent hotel.
At last Madame had breached the walls of the Fauborg
Saint-Germain!

A life-sized portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, dominated
the ducal drawing room, and Lady Caithness told H.P.B.
the dramatic story of an interview that had changed her
whole life. This famous Queen, dead for three centuries,
had returned to earth for the sole purpose of talking with

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her. It had happened ten years earlier, when the Duchesse,
a young widow, was living in Caithness Castle, Edinburgh.
Following instructions received from Queen Mary in a
dream, with only one attendant, she slipped out one mid-
night into a waiting cab and was driven to the chapel of
Holyrood Castle. After a long and intimate conversation,
the Queen informed Lady Caithness that she was her
Guardian Angel and kissed her on the forehead. The Duch-
esse took a solemn vow and consecrated the rest of her life
to God.

Eager to promote interest in Theosophy among the
“right sort of people,” Lady Caithness invited to meet
H.P.B. all the blue-blooded mystics and near-mystics of
Paris, and a few fashionable non-mystics. Ascending the
palatial staircase, announced by footmen in powdered wigs
and satin breeches, the Old Guard of Paris traversed the
vast drawing rooms to bow before My Lady, wearing dia-
monds the size of pigeons' eggs— and beside her, Madame
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. To compete with the dia-
monds, H.P.B. had ready some well-planned effects. Mo-
hini, exotic and svelte, created a sensation wherever they
went by prostrating himself upon the floor when Madame
entered or left the room; the sly Babula in bare feet and a
flutter of white draperies glided in and out of Madame’s
presence on mysterious errands. The Fauborg Saint-Ger-
main watched through lorgnettes and monocles as closely
as good manners permitted. A writer in Gil Bias described
the affair in a chastened tone, surprisingly respectful for a
Parisian of the Boulevards. They had been accustomed to
laugh at Theosophy, wrote the Frenchman, “but I laugh
no more.” Certainly he was not converted, “but I am dis-
armed, you will see why.” He described H.P.B. discreetly
as “a remarkable woman.” In spite of her hoydenish man-
ner she had, he thought, a certain aristocratic look. Her
dress was most peculiar, a loose black wrapper, something
like a child's smock or a priest’s cassock. With the ease of

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

a grande dame from Russia, she had smoked cigarettes all
the evening while presenting a convincing case for The-
osophy to the men clustered about her, avocats, profes-
seurs, docteurs, “all aristocrats” and, before she was
through -with them, “all believers.” In the end, “a cup of tea
and a smile from Lady Caithness brought us back to reality
and I thought, Paris is a place full of surprises. Who would
have thought that in the Fauborg Germaine, full of old
prejudices. . . ?” 8

Monumental, ungainly, H.P.B. sat back upon the gilts
and brocades of the Paris salons and watched the antics of
the blasd fashionables crowding around her chair; her hoarse
voice boomed out over their high-keyed superlatives and
affectations. At heart Madame was a snob, and she valued
social recognition greedily, but with her head she despised
it, and sometimes, to intimates, she said so:

Allez done! You are a lot of weak, cowardly Grundyists,
a flock of moutons de Panurge following your Jockey-club
scented leaders, and no more! She took care not to let them
see her scorn; they were useful, and she worked hard to win
their approval. As she moved from one great house to an-
other, her retinue performed its exotic routine. Countesses
followed her across Europe on the chance of seeing her
alone for an hour. Bemused young university men took off
on secret missions, returning eagerly to whisper messages in
her ear. On a shoestring she had set herself upon a throne
where she held the full glare of the spotlight, not by her
phenomena alone, but by virtue of her rich personality.
Detached from her cheap and dishonest confederates, from
her strange itch to involve herself in petty politics and quar-
rels, she had a warmth of human understanding, a rollicking
humor, and a fund of wisdom that accounted for part of her
amazing power over people.

As a hospitable gesture Lady Caithness leased for H.P.B.
an apartment on the Left Bank for the summer of 1884.

• Gil Bias, Paris, May 7, 1884.

2l6

THE WORLD IN HER SLING

Here Madame established her little court, with people con-
stantly coming and going: Bertram and Arch Keightley,
eager young Englishmen who could not wait for her to
reach London; Olcott’s former clerk, William Q. Judge, dis-
couraged and at loose ends, through with America and en
route to Adyar for the rest of his life, as he thought; Mad-
ame’s sister and aunt direct from Russia— whom she had
not seen for more than a decade; another compatriot, the
brilliant journalist Solovyov, and oh! the luxury of talking
Russian again. When she was surrounded by her new
friends, did her mind ever carry her back thirty years to
Paris in the mid-fifties and to young Baron Meyendorf and
D. D. Home?

But now H.P.B. was eager to be off to London; she
wanted to see what she had left there since the Ski fiasco
and the loss of Mr. Massey. A year earlier, shortly after
Sinnett’s return to London, he had published a second
book, Esoteric Buddhism, which presented the Theosophi-
cal cosmology as outlined in the letters from the Mahatmas.
Heavier reading than The Occult World, it did not run
through as many editions, but it was seized upon eagerly by
the “serious thinkers.”

An investigation by the Society for Psychical Research
also served both to attract and repel H.P.B. On hearing that
the Founders were to visit London, the Society appointed a
committee to investigate Theosophical claims, and the
Colonel and Mohini had already gone over to answer ques-
tions. She had no qualms about Olcott. He did not know
anything really damaging; he had never been allowed to
have a key to the Shrine or even to the Shrine Room, and
he had repeated his stories of her Simla successes until he
reeled them off like a child speaking a piece. In the end,
Madame also submitted to being interviewed, but she re-
fused to attempt to demonstrate any phenomena. It would
affront the Masters. She was cautious about competent
critics.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Most of all, H.P.B. was eager to know how the London
Theosophical Society was prospering under its new Presi-
dent, the brilliant and beautiful Dr. Anna Kingsford.
Threatened with the collapse of the British branch, H.P.B.
had endorsed the Presidency of this woman, who had her
own following and could bring new blood to the Society,
but it had been a reluctant concession because she did not
like working with women and frequently ridiculed them
in her writings.

Dr. Anna Kingsford shared H.P.B’s yen for the Un-
known, and in addition, possessed many superficial qualities
of leadership that the Russian lacked. She had taken the
degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Paris; she
was fifteen years H.P.B’s junior— in her late 30’s— wore her
clothes well, observed the ordinary conventions, and was
better looking than H.P.B. had ever been. Inheriting inde-
pendent means from her father, a prosperous London ship-
owner, she possessed not only an amiable husband, the
Reverend Algernon Kingsford, who remained in the back-
ground, but also a devoted cavalier, collaborator, and biog-
rapher, Edward Maitland. Dr. Kingsford had charming
platform manners and a flair for crusading causes, such as
the horrors of vivisection. She also had mystical leanings, a
vivid imagination, and impassioned memories of visions and
illuminations; she had received three nocturnal visits from
Saint Mary Magdalene. She herself was a reincarnation
of Anne Boleyn.

From the outset, H.P.B. was jealous, referring to Anna
as “that hypocritical she-devil” or, in milder mood, “the
divine whistle-breeches.” Poor old H.P.B., in spite of her
slovenly appearance and her high rank as an occultist, re-
vealed in her brief encounter with Dr. Kingsford that she
was still subject to the corroding effects of feminine vanity.
Fatuously she harped on Dr. Kingsford’s appearance; how
could Anna, “the mystic of the century,” confabulate with
unseen gods when she persisted in wearing so much jewelry

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that she looked like the front window of a Delhi jeweller?
Even if she was a fascinating woman, why should she dress
her beautiful golden hair to look like the mitre of the dugpa
(evil spirit), Dashatu Lama and wear a dress to Sinnett’s
party that made her look like the black-and-yellow zebra in
the menagerie of the Maharajah of Kashmir? And what
possessed her to paint her beautiful arms black up to the
shoulders? The answer to the last question was that Anna
had worn shoulder length black mousquetaire gloves. But
there was no satisfactory answer for H.P.B. She did not trust
Theosophists “loaded with jewelry like a Greek corpse,”
and was more concerned about their having true Theosophy
in their hearts.

Kind friends reported these amusing remarks to Anna,
who was much too clever to reply in kind. Instead, she shot
straight into the bull’s eye by attacking the authenticity of
the Mahatmas as interpreted by Sinnett in his last book.
She was an adroit antagonist, and selected her targets with
intelligence. She twitted H.P.B. on adopting reincarnation
as an afterthought, having really borrowed the idea from
herself and Edward Maitland! She dissented from Mad-
ame’s low estimate of women, and she protested vehemently
against the anti-Christian tone of the Adyar propaganda,
for Anna, however she might pile on the trimmings, was at
heart a fervent Christian mystic. Sinnett, who wanted to get
rid of Dr. Kingsford so that he could be president himself,
waited hopefully for the thunderbolts to descend upon
Anna’s heresies. But the Mahatmas held their peace. After
all, she was an intimate friend of the Duchesse de Pomar.
With Maitland hovering over her, she continued to preside
with charm and brilliance over the London Lodge, as she
had renamed the branch, dropping the word Theosophy,
but maintaining the connection with the parent society.

It was at a London Lodge meeting on June 30, 1884, the
air charged with psychic dynamite, that H.P.B., supposed to
be in Paris, walked in unannounced. At the moment, Sin-

219

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

nett was making a speech on a controversial issue. The
Colonel and Mohini were seated in the front row. The in-
stant that Madame appeared in the doorway, the exotic
Mohini glided swiftly down the full length of the room,
prostrated himself on the floor before her, and kissed the
hem of her skirt. Sinnett was forgotten as his entire audience
craned their necks to watch the tableau. Before she was in-
side the room, H.P.B. had stolen the show. Mohini had
received a special letter from the Master Koot Hoomi
coaching him for such occasions; he must not mind the
gaping Westerners. “You have to stun them. You will meet
and receive her as though you were in India.” In contrast to
his humility before H.P.B., Mohini avoided shaking hands
with either men or women because of the contamination
of unclean Western habits; instead he gravely joined the
palms of his hands, salaaming in Eastern fashion. Mohini’s
obeisance before H.P.B. proved contagious; emotional
women and impressionable men fell to their knees and
fumbled with the hem of her trailing skirts. Her chance re-
marks were repeated and treasured. People boasted of the
number of seconds she had paused in passing.

In spite of Sinnett’s disappointment over the Phoenix
venture and other recent humiliations at the hands of the
Masters, he was again stage-managing as he had in Simla,
striving to make Theosophy acceptable to “the best peo-
ple.” H.P.B. and Babula stayed at his house, while the
Colonel and Mohini were guests of Miss Arundale. Lunch-
eons, receptions, conversaziones crowded in upon them.
They met literary London: Sir Edwin Arnold, Robert
Browning, and leading scientists, Crookes, Barrett, Pod-
more, Myers. The Founders reached the pinnacle of their
glory at a reception at Prince’s Hall on the evening of July
19, 1884. Once again Madame permitted herself to be cor-
seted into black satin. Looped round and round her neck
and over her ample bosom lay the heavy golden chain on
which she once used to lead her Russian wolfhound. The

220

THE WORLD IN HER SLING

company included the Under-Secretary of State for India,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ambassadors and diplo-
mats, Members of Parliament, titles, the intelligentsia.
Madame’s social rehabilitation was more amazing than her
making people believe in Mahatmas; it was the most spec-
tacular achievement of her career. For this was Queen Vic-
toria’s London, where divorcees were cast into outer dark-
ness and where women were so pure that supposedly they
had never even heard of bigamists and lights-o’-love.

221

CHAPTER XIV

THE COULOMB LETTERS

(1884)

EVEN without second sight H.P.B. could have read the
handwriting on the wall, for every mailboat brought her
warnings from Adyar. The ormulu and gilt of the Paris
salons, the gold and glitter of the beau monde were tar-
nishing under a film of fear. She had barely left India before
the factions bottled up in the compound were bombarding
her with complaints.

When Dr. Hartmann as chairman called together the
trustees at Adyar, he suggested that they meet in H.P.B’s
sitting room, for Theosophists, believing that psychic rays
emanate from a person’s aura, would naturally find special
virtue in their guru's apartment. The Coulombs, however,
had secret instructions to lock the staircase door leading
to the apartment, and admit no one. Madame Coulomb
had aggravated the trustees’ irritation by her insulting
manner.

The letters from Adyar ranged from annoyance to viru-
lence. Lane-Fox and Dr. Hartmann wrote in righteous indig-
nation. Regarding Adyar as a place of holy retreat, they had
come to it as on a pilgrimage, and were chagrined to find

222

THE COULOMB LETTERS

the compound teeming with intrigue and hatred. Solemnly
they warned H.P.B. that Madame Coulomb was a traitor
and should be turned out instantly. She was maliciously
undermining Theosophy and the Mahatmas with her jeers;
she told everyone that her husband was building trapdoors
and apparatus in the Shrine Room for more trick phe-
nomena, and even claimed that one purpose of the Society
was to overthrow British rule in India. She had also spread
stories of H.P.B’s past and a M. Metrovitch, of money
H.P.B. had borrowed in Cairo and never returned. She
hinted that she could tell much more if she wished. The
trustees demanded her immediate discharge, unaware that
H.P.B. had tolerated her sabotage for several years.

Damodar’s letter was written in anguish. He was a callow,
inexperienced lad, skeleton-thin, ungainly, with sunken
cheeks, lantern jaw, and a fanatical glitter in his reproachful
brown eyes. Even H.P.B. used to laugh at his lead pencil
legs. Taking his responsibility to protect Madame's interests
very seriously, he hovered about the edges of the battlefield
like a wraith.

Madame Coulomb’s attitude was frank blackmail. When
H.P.B. was away visiting Simla, Ooty, and her Indian Rajahs
she used to write Madame Coulomb instructions for timing
phenomena to be produced in her absence or synchronized
with her own magical effects. Madame Coulomb had ac-
cumulated about forty of these letters, and her threat to
publish them arrived while H.P.B. was the guest of Lady
Caithness. H.P.B. cabled back: “What can be done? Tele-
graph.” Then, secluding herself in her Paris apartment,
H.P.B., on April 1, 1884, wrote Madame Coulomb a long,
pleading letter, utilizing every possible appeal: flattery, self-
interest, ambition, and friendship. She acknowledged grate-
fully Madame Coulomb’s helping her in Cairo and her con-
tinuing assistance! Permitting herself only the gentlest of
reproaches, she hammered home one point: nothing was to
be gained by destroying H.P.B. If Madame Coulomb made

223

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

it impossible for her to return to India, she, H.P.B., could
always establish her Mahatmas elsewhere. Adyar had no
monopoly on the gods. (See Appendix H, page 328.)

With clever double entendres, H.P.B. maintained ap-
pearances. There was nothing compromising in this letter,
but she knew that she had not been discreet in the past and
that she was at Madame Coulomb’s mercy. The letter was a
tumultuous and moving plea, but it was too late. Matters
had moved too swiftly for the slow come and go of the
mail steamers.

Hot weather closed in relentlessly, intensifying the night-
mare atmosphere of the compound. It had long been
rumored that Madame Coulomb raided the household
funds left in her charge, and the Sahibs now pounced upon
her accounts and found them out of balance. They were
using this as an excuse for ejecting the Coulombs without
waiting for authorization from H.P.B. In the nick of time,
the Master Koot Hoomi intervened on March 22 with a
letter to Damodar urging the trustees to err on the side of
mercy: the woman was only a poor spiritualistic medium
and therefore not in control of her faculties or responsible
for what she did. (See Appendix I, page 330.)

It is the opinion of handwriting experts that this K. H.
letter was written by Damodar; he realized that only the
Mahatmas could stay the swift march of events. The letter
bears witness to H.P.B’s ability to inspire her followers with
dynamic loyalty. Damodar, a timid, cringing creature, here
took the initiative, improvised a creditable imitation of
H.P.B’s imitation of what a Mahatma might be supposed
to say, and valiantly used it to dominate and restrain the
white Sahibs. The Sahibs, confident in their righteous in-
dignation, were brought up short by the letter. After a
stunned moment, they accepted it and solemnly undertook
to do what the Mahatma ordered, be gentle and patient
and show the Coulombs more consideration. But there is
more than one way to skin a cat. The Sahibs undertook to

224

THE COULOMB LETTERS

get rid of the Coulombs by luring them to the other side of
the world. Dr. Hartmann offered them a gold-mine claim in
Colorado, and the Sahibs would chip in their traveling ex-
pense. The offer was accepted, passage engaged. At the last
minute the Coulombs decided that they were letting the
rich Sahibs off too cheaply and demanded an additional
thousand dollars in cash. If it was not forthcoming, they
would publish H.P.B’s compromising letters.

The Hindu chelas had heard Madame Coulomb mutter-
ing about these letters for months. Subba Row— lawyer as
well as philosopher— had forehandedly written H.P.B. in
the early spring to ask whether Madame Coulomb could
have anything really damaging, and if so, urging an imme-
diate cash settlement with the woman as the only way out.
True to her policy of never admitting anything, H.P.B.
airily insisted that there was nothing to worry about. Now
the trustees were alarmed all over again by the demand for
a thousand dollars, and termed it blackmail in a cable to
H.P.B., who was by then established with her retinue on the
handsome estate of the Count and Countess d’Adhemar at
Enghien. Exasperated, she cabled a go-ahead, and the
trustees at a special board meeting expelled the Coulombs
from the Society and ordered them off the compound.
During the ensuing back-chat the Sahib Saint George Lane-
Fox lost his temper and swung at M. Coulomb or, according
to another account, slapped the policeman summoned by
the Coulombs to protect them. The distinguished Lane-Fox
was hauled off to the police court and fined for assault and
battery, which must have made the Coulombs feel a little
less badly about their ejection.

And still the compound continued to seethe. Damodar
now had the key to H.P.B’s rooms, and he proved as stiff-
necked and objectionable as the Coulombs. Irritably the
white sahibs discontinued their lessons in the secrets of
occultism from the Hindu chelas. The heat and rains and
rigors of hot-weather Madras, almost on the equator, beat

225

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

them down mercilessly. The headquarters of Universal
Brotherhood was rent in twain by a grim lineup of Euro-
peans against Hindus.

If H.P.B. had returned to India by the next steamer, she
could still have patched things up, but the intoxicating
fragrance of social rehabilitation bewitched her. Simla and
Ooty ceased to exist, mere pretentious colonial capitals. She
had moved to a larger stage, to problems of greater moment.
A fashionable artist, Schmiechen, was doing her portrait; he
was also painting the Masters, not from life to be sure, but
by a process of thought transference from H.P.B. And she
must keep an eye on the future. She had made her come-
back as a wonder-worker. The marvels could not cease or
lose their novelty; she was always seeking new ideas, new
confederates.

In this crowded summer of 1884 she took time for a brief
and intensive interlude with a newcomer, a woman this
time, and an American, Laura Holloway, just arrived in
London. Having read Sinnett’s Occult World, Mrs. Hollo-
way aspired to become a pupil of the Master K. H. She was
young, attractive, ardent, and— best of all— a medium.
Originally the guest of Miss Arundale, Mrs. Holloway so
captivated the Sinnetts that they invited her to visit them.
On the evening of July 6 she held a memorable private
seance for the Sinnetts alone. After she had passed into a
trance, the Master Koot Hoomi took possession of her and
spoke directly in the first person to her hosts. Infatuated
with the Mahatma concept, Sinnett had suffered tortures
of jealousy of the Ferns, Browns and other transient and
often shoddy favorites. Now at last, after years of effort and
sacrifice, he had achieved the firsthand recognition and con-
tact with the Master hitherto denied him. He was in
ecstasy.

At this crucial moment H.P.B. arrived in England from
her Paris triumphs, and at once went about demolishing
Sinnett’s cardboard castle. Sensing that he was concealing

226

THE COULOMB LETTERS

something, she soon confirmed her suspicions. Hastily she
arranged that Laura Holloway should collaborate with her
attractive chela Mohini in writing a book. She made it a
condition that Laura leave the Sinnetts and return to Miss
Arundale. Not that it mattered to her; it was an order of the
Masters. She could not imagine what difference it made to
them, but one can not argue, etc.

Having bribed Laura with joint authorship of an anony-
mous book of dreary moonshine, 1 H.P.B. tried to sow dis-
cord by making Sinnett jealous of Laura, who, she said, was
plotting to monopolize future messages from the Master
K. H. and step into Sinnett’s shoes as a Theosophical literary
light. Madame’s strategy did not work and she faced a
crisis. If the Masters escaped from her control, her game
was up. The Masters wrote letters in all directions. Mrs.
Holloway must sleep at Miss Arundale’s every night, no
visiting around; as for those pretended messages from K. H.
that Sinnett had received at Laura's seance, they were a
fraud, the work of dugpas (evil spirits). The Master wrote
soothingly to Laura: he realized that she was quite innocent
in the matter, but she had been tricked by overwhelming
powers. It was not the Master but a Devil who had spoken
through her. There were the usual threats of excommunica-
tion for failing to appreciate and obey our devoted and
loyal servant, H.P.B.

Sinnett was not to be intimidated. He had heard those
threats before, and the next week the Masters would forget
them. Sinnett issued an ultimatum of his own. Mrs. Hollo-
way would remain as a guest in his house or else he would
leave the Society. Staggered but resourceful, H.P.B. tucked
Laura under her wing and on July 24, 1884, rushed off to
Germany, followed by her Court. She undertook to build
up Laura, binding her as an assistant-in-chief to her own
side, where she could keep an eye on her. The Masters ap-
proved and wrote eulogies of Laura’s ability and brilliant

1 Two Chelas: Man, Fragments of Forgotten History.

227

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

future, vaguely suggesting her as a successor to H.P.B. when
the day came.

This time H.P.B. had gone too far. Once sure of a man,
she had an urge to “treat him rough,” and she had grown
too sure of Sinnett. Never had she permitted him to see or
speak to a Master; she had put him over the jumps in the
Phoenix venture, and had denied him the justice of an
answer from the Masters to Dr. Kingsford's attack on his
last book. On tiptoe in H.P.B’s absence, he had contrived
to put a call through to his beloved Koot Hoomi, using
Laura as the telephone central. When H.P.B. tried to tear
out the phantom switchboard, Sinnett rebelled. The emo-
tional drive that had made it possible for him to accept
H.PJB’s vagaries for five years now enabled him to cast her
off.

Magically the scales fell from his eyes. K. H. wrote several
angry letters insisting that Laura move back to Miss Arun-
dale’s, but they rang false and Sinnett knew that the Old
Lady had written them . 2 Sinnett regained his earlier normal
outlook except in one detail. To the end of his long life he
continued to believe in the Mahatmas and to communicate
with them through mediums in trance. It was the
dammed-up emotion of Sinnett’s thwarted need to come
closer to his Masters that forced him to recognize that
H.P.B. was an impostor. But she had drawn her fantasy
figures with such consummate skill, with such knowledge of
the human heart that after repudiating her, Sinnett could
still retain inviolate his belief in her Mahatmas. Even in his
repudiation of Madame, Sinnett paid her tribute.

2. s.o.S.

(1884)

In the midst of her English ovation Madame had dashed
off to visit her German friends, the Gebhards; she wanted

2 A. P. Sinnett: Early Days of Theosophy in Europe, pp. 61-2.

228

THE COULOMB LETTERS

to take Laura away from the Sinnetts and, in addition, she
had plans for Germany. She would add another pearl to her
string of international sections, and the Gebhards were her
grain of sand in the German oyster. They were a large
family, prominent, wealthy, occultists in one degree or an-
other, keeping open house on a handsome estate in Elber-
feld. Herr Consul Gebhard had recently returned from a
diplomatic post in the United States. Frau Gebhard, Eng-
lish bom, friend of the Sinnetts, a kind and gracious woman,
was one of the rare genuine mystics in H.P.B’s circle. For
seven years she and the Baron Spedalieri had studied with
the famous old Kabbalist, the Abbe Constant, known in
occult circles as Eliphas Levi. They were the only pupils he
considered worthy of his time and effort. Besides delving
deeply into folk lore, superstitions, and the classics of oc-
cultism, Frau Gebhard had found self-expression in a rigid
discipline. In later years the demands of family life had
compelled her to forego the old austerities, but the cumula-
tive discipline of life itself had brought her added wisdom
and understanding.

From July to September 1884 H.P.B., her relatives, her
chelas, and her staff occupied the Gebhard home. Minor
celebrities from all over the world came and went: F. W. H.
Myers, English psychologist and pioneer in the application
of scientific standards to the study of hypnotism and hal-
lucination; his friend Solovyov, the Russian journalist who
had been having an affair with H.P.B’s sister, Vera; Dr.
Elliott Coues, eminent biologist from Washington, D. C.,
General D. O. Howard, U. S. Army; the Countess von
Spreti and Frau Max, sisters of Dr. Hartmann, who was still
chairing the board of trustees in Adyar; the Countess
Wachtmeister, English-born widow of a Swedish diplomat;
Herr Doktor Hubbe-Schleiden, diplomat and historian,
who became President of the newly organized German
branch of the Theosophical Society.

It was a tense and uneasy summer with a sense of catas-

229

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

trophe waiting in the wings, or perhaps it was the astral
body of Madame Coulomb and the terrorizing question:
What will she do next? H.P.B. kept herself going under
high tension; she must gauge the degree of personal atten-
tion required by all the jealous members of her retinue, not
only from herself, but from each of the Mahatmas. Phe-
nomena multiplied; letters from the Masters materialized
on tables, in bureau drawers, fell down from behind massive
gilt picture frames, even pelted the head of the prospective
president, Hiibbe-Schleiden, in a railway carriage. Growing
more jittery with the passing weeks, H.P.B. suffered an at-
tack of gout and vented her rage on her intimates. The
Colonel, who had learned not to flinch, set down in his
diary one of his rare critical comments. On August 24th he
wrote with eloquent brevity: “H.P.B. savage.”

After a last shrill warning from Damodar, the blow fell
in September. Newspaper dispatches from Calcutta an-
nounced the publication of compromising letters written by
Madame Blavatsky to a confederate, Madame Coulomb; a
cabled summary of the letters indicated that the supposedly
supernatural phenomena had been planned in advance and
executed by very human hands.

They were the letters that Madame Coulomb had been
peddling for months and that Subba Row had advised
H.P.B. to purchase. They were finally published by Madras
missionaries who had old scores to settle. These letters,
written in H.P.B’s own cynical, vigorous style, stripped the
mystery from her phenomena and left exposed a miscellany
of childish tricks. Some high-ranking British faces, tanned
though they were by desert suns, must have burned at being
exposed as dupes of such crude devices.

To create the illusion of a Master strolling through the
compound, H.P.B. had used M. Coulomb or Babula as
confederates, slipping over their shoulders a dummy figure
that she nicknamed Christophe or Christofolo. In a narra-

230

THE COULOMB LETTERS

tive accompanying the letters, Madame Coulomb described
making the dummy. H.P.B. had sketched and cut out a
cloth model of a face; after Mme Coulomb stuffed and
sewed it up, H.P.B. with a few deft touches of her paint
brush made it quite lifelike. This head, swathed in a turban,
was fastened to a pair of jackets; between the two, wrote
Madame Coulomb, “I placed stuffing to form the shoulders
and chest; the arms were only to the elbow, because when
the thing was tried on, we found the long arm would be in
the way of him who had to carry it .” 8

Christofolo the First met a tragic fate. While the
Founders were in Simla, Madame Coulomb burned him up
in a rage and mentioned the deed in her next letter to Simla.
“Oh my poor Christofolo,” wrote H.P.B. in reply. “Then
he is dead and you have killed him? Oh my dear friend, if
you only knew how much I should like to see him revive.
. . . My blessing on my poor Christofolo. Ever yours,
H.P.B.” Madame Coulomb soon relented, and H.P.B.
found consolation in Christofolo II, who was even more
lifelike than his predecessor.

A typical letter directed Madame Coulomb to deliver to
Damodar an enclosure from the Master K. H. The breath-
less mixture of French and English conveyed a sense of
H.P.B’s excitement; she could snatch only a minute, and
“je vous supplie faites parvenir cette lettre (here enclosed)
a Damodar in a miraculous way. It is very important. Oh,
ma chere, que je suis done malhereuse . . . Toute a vous,
H.P.B.” Theosophists have interpreted this letter as absolv-
ing Damodar from the charge of collusion. Rather, it illus-
trates H.P.B’s efforts to keep up the morale of her chelas.
She appreciated the importance of face-saving, of providing
plausible excuses for connivance in fraud. Her favorite ex-
planation was “saving power.” The Mahatmas could per-

3 Mme E. Coulomb: Some Accounts of my Intercourse with Madame
Blavatsky from 1872 to 1884.

231

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

form all these marvels unaided, but why trouble when it
was so easy for a chela to be helpful? The Mahatmas had
only so much power, why waste it?

With Madame Coulomb, H.P.B. did not trouble to play
a part, writing to her with an easy familiarity that suggests
two cynical women in cahoots. Expert in flattery, she be-
stowed suave French titles upon the forlorn Coulombs:
they were Marquis and Marquise. Several letters of instruc-
tion related to the pin tray that satisfied poor old General
Morgan of H.P.B’s miraculous powers. They show her at
work weeks in advance to secure casual, just-happened-so,
effects, trusting to her powers of suggestion to push people
into position. The pin tray incident depended on the Gen-
eral’s coming to Madras during the summer. If he had not
come, there would have been no miracle and no harm done.
H.P.B. showed, too, a certain thriftiness with her magic.
Confident that the pin tray was to be especially impressive,
even rivalling the Simla cup and saucer, she cautioned Mad-
ame Coulomb to try to arrange for an additional audience
of “respectable persons” whose names signed to an affidavit
would be more impressive than “our own familiar muffs
and domestic imbeciles.” (See Appendix J, page 331.) On
August 10, 1883 came the go ahead signal:

My dear Madame Coulomb and Marquis :

This is the moment for us to come out— do not let us hide
ourselves. The General is leaving this for Madras on business.
He will be there on Monday, and will remain there two days.
He is President of the Society here, and wishes to see the Shrine.
It is probable that he will put some question, or perhaps he may
be contented with looking. But it is certain that he expects a
phenomenon for he told me so. In the first case beg K. H. whom
you see every day or Christofolo, to keep up the honour of the
family . Tell him that a flower will be sufficient, and that si le pot
de chambre cassait [if the pot breaks] under its load of curiosity,
it would be well to replace it at once.

The others be damned; this is worth its weight in gold. For the
love of God— or of anyone you please— do not miss this oppor-

2 - 3,2

THE COULOMB LETTERS

tunity, for tve shall never have another. I am not there, and that
is the beauty of the thing. I rely on you, and beg you not to
disappoint me, for all my projects and my future depend on
you— (for I am going to have a house here, where I can spend
six months of the year, and it shall be mine for the society, and
you shall no longer suffer from the heat as you do now, but this
if 1 succeed). . . . This is the proper time to do something. Turn
the GeneraFs head and he will do anything for you, especially if
you are with him dt the same time as Christophe. . . .

Heartily yours,

Luna Melanconica.

Enclosed in the letter was what H.P.B. called an “en cas,”
a message from K. H. “in case” the General wanted an im-
mediate reply to a question. The “en cas ” was adroitly
worded to meet any contingency. It read: “I can say nothing
now— and I will let you know at Ooty. K. H.”

In spite of months of warning, publication of the Cou-
lomb letters in the London Times and on the Continent
found H.P.B. with no settled line of defense. Her first im-
pulse was to cry forgery: “I have never written two lines to
her (Madame Coulomb)”; and again:

I swear by the Master whom I serve faithfully, and for the
sake of carrying whose orders I suffer now, let Him curse me in
the future birth, aye, in a dozen of births, if I have ever done
anything on my own hook, if I have ever written one line of
these infernal letters. I care not for the experts; I care not for
the missionaries, court, jury or the devil on earth himself . . .
1 have not written the “Coulomb letters .” 4

Madame Blavatsky rushed back to London to be near
Sinnett. Never mind about Laura now and the Masters'
ultimata. It is a pleasant note in a sordid picture that though
Sinnett had suffered deeply and was disillusioned about
H.P.B., he did help her valiantly, conducting a skilful pub-
licity campaign on her behalf. He pointed out that her piG-
turesque style was as unmistakable as a thumbprint, where-
upon she admitted writing the original letters, but clung to

4 Annie Besant: H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 68.

233

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

the forgery defense, claiming that Madame Coulomb had
twisted sentences and interpolated words to change their
meaning.

In the midst of feverish tension, a new danger confronted
H.P.B. The Society for Psychical Research was sending an
investigator to Adyar to study on the spot conditions asso-
ciated with her phenomena and to issue a public report. In
the interests of Truth, H.P.B. must appear to welcome the
man and give him every assistance. For two months she
stayed on in London groping for a plan of action. She
wanted to run away, and she toyed with a mysterious dis-
appearance. It would excite interest, perhaps sympathy; it
might cause a reaction in her favor. She wrote to Solovyov:
“I will go to China, to Tibet, to the devil if I must, where
nobody will see me or know where I am . . . and I wish it
to be thought that I am dead.” 8 Only Olcott was to know
her whereabouts; in her heart she knew that she could trust
her whipping-boy to the bitter end. After a year or two she
would reappear with a story of adventures marvelous
enough to pique curiosity and restore Theosophical pres-
tige. This plan, she told Solovyov, was not her own: it had
come to her as an order issued and signed by the Master
Morya himself.

One important detail prevented H.P.B. from carrying out
this order. She did not have the money! Two years earlier
the Mahatmas had proposed carrying her off to Tibet for
a month. Now they offered her no refuge. She had nothing
more to say about the wooden hut standing in the jungle
on pelican’s legs and the eternal gul-gul-gul of her Boss’s
chelum pipe. Master Koot Hoomi added his usual red and
blue pencil scrawls to H.P.B’s letters, but they sounded off
key. He told Solovyov that “la situation est furieusement
s6rieuse,” and he cursed Olcott for a fool, “mais il n’y en a
pas d’autre” [but there is nobody else]. In this hour of her
greatest need, the Masters of H.P.B’s universe stood around
8 Solovyoff: p. 94.

234

THE COULOMB LETTERS

as embarrassed and helpless as a prospective father waiting
in a hospital corridor.

This was no time for bluffing about the Masters. H.P.B’s
only hope lay in offers of help from her disciples; they must
get no silly notion that the Mahatmas would come to the
rescue. Her Elberfeld courtiers had scattered in all direc-
tions: Babula had been hurried back to Adyar with Colonel
Olcott. Sister Vera and the aunt returned to Russia after a
quarrel over Solovyov. Laura Holloway, a great disappoint-
ment, had been glad to escape from H.P.B. back to the
United States. Mohini no longer prostrated himself before
his guru, but quietly slid out of the picture to begin a career
of his own as a guru. Through all the storm and stress, the
satire of press and pamphleteers, the mocking gossip, H.P.B.
not only held the loyal support of a residuum of disciples,
but actually continued to sign up new recruits.

When she set sail from Liverpool on November 11, 1884,
she was escorted by eager new disciples, the Cooper-Oak-
leys, he a Cambridge man, she a writer. Carried away by en-
thusiasm for a noble woman, victim of malicious persecu-
tion, the Cooper-Oakleys sold their home in England,
burned their bridges, and were going to India to serve
H.P.B. for the rest of their lives. As it turned out, the cli-
mate did not agree with Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, and she re-
turned to England after only five months.

An old friend of H.P.B’s, the medium Eglinton, was in-
strumental in securing another recruit. Eglinton was now
a fashionable institution with a dizzy clientele of titles right
up to and including the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone;
even H.P.B. secretly attended his seances. Perhaps in mem-
ory of the Vega letters, which had turned out so badly, Eg-
linton undertook to forward a letter from one of his clerical
customers to the Master Koot Hoomi. And so it happened
that H.P.B. took back to India with her a middle-aged cu-
rate named Leadbeater. He was a man of excellent family
and university connections, and had an imposing presence,

235

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

a glint in his eyes, and a pointed beard suggesting Mephis-
topheles. He was an abnormal and dangerous person. Di-
verted by her new courtier’s wit and good manners, H.P.B.,
instead of hurrying back to Adyar, took time at this critical
juncture for an excursion to Ceylon. She wanted the satis-
faction of shaking this curate in the faces of her antagonists.
“Discredit these vile Calvinistic missionaries,” she wrote.
With a fanfare of publicity, Leadbeater renounced Chris-
tianity, took pansil, and became a Buddhist. It is ironic
that in her hatred of the Christian church, H.P.B. spon-
sored this damaged ex-curate, who cost the Theosophists
more members and did more to wreck the Society after her
death than all their other enemies put together.

Attended by her Buddhist neophyte and by the Cooper-
Oakleys, H.P.B. finally reached Adyar on December 21.
Richard Hodgson, investigator for the Society for Psychical
Research had been at work for four days. That night, tucked
once more into her own bed behind the long curtains,
H.P.B. thought back wistfully to the splendor and pomp of
her visits to the Almanach de Gotha. Midnight was striking,
and Cinderella had tarried too long at the ball. In the scram-
ble she lost more than a silver slipper.

236

CHAPTER XV

REPORT OF THE SOCIETY FOR
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

(iSS) — 6 )

THE REPORT of the Society for Psychical Research,
published in December 1885, marked a turning point in
H.P.B’s life. From then on her appeal was confined to a
slightly different public, no less fashionable, but less criti-
cal, more easily dominated by their emotions. Previously
she had attracted, though she could not hold, a leaven of
the intellectually curious. Her timing had been most for-
tunate.

Two decades of sensational spiritualistic phenomena pro-
vided a fertile field of general information. Popular interest
in the achievements of science was almost equally helpful.
The public had been educated by a period of revolutionary
scientific progress to accept new marvels without cavil. The
epoch-making revelations of Darwin and Spencer were fol-
lowed by spectacular demonstrations of applied science. In
1866, Cyrus Field opened cable communication between
the United States and England; in 1872 Edison perfected
his duplex telegraph; in 1875 Alexander Graham Bell spoke
over the telephone the famous first words: “What hath God
wrought?”; in 1877 Edison played “Mary had a little lamb”

237

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

on his first phonograph; in 1879 a horseless gasoline car-
riage was registered at the Patent Office. After such prece-
dents, he would be churlish who denied that almost any-
thing might, and does, happen!

Seeking to extend the field of authentic information, a
group of Oxford and Cambridge students joined older
scholars in the late 70’s to form a Phasmatalogical Society,
reorganizing themselves in 1882 into the more ambitious
Society for Psychical Research. Looking over the member-
ship list, H.P.B’s eyes had glittered because it included so
many names that she coveted: the Prime Minister, Mr.
Gladstone; Lord Tennyson; John Ruskin; Arthur Balfour;
Sir William Crookes; Alfred Russel Wallace; Oliver Lodge;
William James. It also included most of the men who, after
brief experience of H.P.B’s azure eyes, had already broken
or would soon break away, and of a few who had never suc-
cumbed. Their names brought back a long vista of fencing,
maneuvering, explaining, memories gay and bitter, chiefly
bitter: the Hon. Alexander Aksakov; C. C. Massey; Edward
Maitland, cavalier to Anna Kingsford; Saint George Lane-
Fox; Colonel Bundy, editor of the Religio-Philosophical
Journal of Chicago, which had ridden her pretty hard; Dr.
Hiibbe-Schleiden, briefly President of the German section.

The committee appointed by the Psychical Researchers
early in 1884 to interview Founders and chelas during their
visit to London had hoped to observe Theosophical phe-
nomena at first hand, a request that was indignantly denied
by H.P.B. as affronting the dignity of the Masters. Publica-
tion of the Coulomb letters gave a new and sensational turn
to the investigation. Special funds were volunteered, and a
young Cambridge man, Richard Hodgson, B.A., Scholar
of Saint John’s College, was dispatched to Adyar to make
an on-the-spot study.

Because the Report was catastrophic for Madame Blavat-
sky, Theosophists have done their best to discredit the man
vho wrote it. Richard Hodgson was a pioneer in the effort

238

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

to make honest women of psychical phenomena by taking
them out of the realm of old wives’ tales and by establish-
ing their authenticity under rigid scientific investigation.
Hodgson worked for the British Society for Psychical Re-
search until 1890, when William James selected him from
a number of candidates and brought him to Boston as sec-
retary-treasurer of the newly organized American branch of
the Society. Hodgson was widely and favorably known in
this country, and served the Society for twenty-five years,
until his death in 1905. William James wrote of him that
he was “a man among men anywhere,” and that he had that
“happy, sober and righteous form of energy which his face
proclaimed . . . when a man’s pursuit makes his face shine
and grow handsome, you may be sure it is a worthy one.” 1
Walter Franklin Prince, another authority, paid impressive
tribute to Hodgson a quarter-century after his death in a
symposium published by Clark University. 2 Assuming that
the field of psychical research is a bog, wrote Dr. Prince, he
considered Hodgson uncommonly fitted by mental consti-
tution and equipment to build a road across that bog; he
was a man “of keen and logical intellect, author of historic
exposures of fraud, co-author of the finest demonstration of
the possibilities of mal-observation and memory aberration
in existence, unusually versed in the methodology of fraud
and deception.”

Hodgson’s Report opened with a statement of the Theo-
sophical claims that had challenged investigation.® Madame
Blavatsky alleged that members of a Tibetan brotherhood
had acquired supernormal powers enabling them to per-
form wonders impossible to ordinary men. These Brothers,
also known as Masters or Mahatmas, took a special interest

1 William James: Memories and Studies , p. 194.

2 Clark University Symposium, Case for and against Psychical Belief ,
p. 183.

8 Society for Psychical Research, Proceedings, Vol. Ill (1885), part 9;
Vol. IX, parts 24, 25. Society for Psychical Research, Journal, June 1884,
April 1885, June 1886, etc.

2 39

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

in the Theosophical Society. Using Madame Blavatsky as
their sole intermediary, they had caused their apparitions
or astral bodies to appear in places far distant from their
human bodies, talking intelligibly, leaving material me-
mentos such as letters, turbans, and dishes. In addition to
the Mahatmas and H.P.B., chelas also made projections of
their astral forms, notably Mr. Damodar K. Mavalankar.

The Society wanted evidence on: the existence of the Ma-
hatmas; the authenticity of the alleged supernormal powers
of Madame Blavatsky and of the chelas. Types of phenom-
ena were listed for investigation: transportation through
solid matter of objects such as letters and cigarettes; pre-
cipitation of handwriting and drawings on blank paper, and
evocation of sounds, raps, and music without the use of
physical instruments. The Committee also charged Hodg-
son to investigate the credibility of witnesses, especially the
chelas; to examine sites of phenomena— walls, ceilings, and
trapdoors— for evidence of fraud; to check the Coulomb let-
ters and any other relevant items.

When Madame Blavatsky took forgery as her defense,
she also pledged herself to sue the missionaries for instigat-
ing the plot against her. Forgery was a familiar cry to Theos-
ophists. H.P.B’s succession of short-lived favorites usually
crashed because of bungling her instructions or other-
wise betraying her; there were frequent embarrassing letters
to disavow, and they were always forgeries. Fern, Eglinton,
and the other mediums had to keep quiet; they had been
conniving in fraud and had no comeback. With Madame
Coulomb it was less simple. She was so far down that she
had nothing to lose, freely admitting her complicity. More-
over, H.P.B’s charge was fantastic. Imitation of a signature
requires an expert's hand; forging entire letters requires a
skill that would presumably have been applied to more
profitable projects. Nor was it only the manual dexterity. If
Madame Coulomb had the wit to write these letters, a bril-
liant reproduction of H.P.B’s whimsical style, she would

240

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

scarcely have been wasting her time as the slovenly and re-
bellious housekeeper on a compound in southern India. If
she produced these letters she was, commented Arthur Lil-
lie, “the greatest master of refined mockery since Voltaire.”

Charges of forgery were complicated by H.P.B’s naive
boasting about her own skill in this field, as when she mysti-
fied the Ooty official with a letter addressed to himself in
his own handwriting (p. 204) . H.P.B. told other stories that
reached back to her childhood: she claimed to have begun
when about nine years old, continuing until she was fifteen,
to write letters every night from the spirit of a Frau Leben-
dorf. The letters, said H.P.B. , though written by her own
childish hand, were distinctly in Frau Lebendorf’s “clear,
old-fashioned, peculiar handwriting and grammar ... ac-
cumulating in these six years to a heap of manuscript that
would have filled ten volumes.” 4

Hodgson wanted an analysis of the handwriting of the
Mahatma letters as well as those from H.P.B. to Madame
Coulomb, but he could not at first secure adequate samples.
Theosophists have made much of the experts' failure to
identify some of Koot Hoomi’s scribbled postscripts in red
and blue pencil as having been written by H.P.B. They ig-
nore the very positive identification made by the same ex-
perts when Hodgson secured from Mr. Hume some of the
voluminous Mahatma letters and also some of H.P.B's.
Hodgson submitted his samples to two of the foremost
handwriting experts of the day, Mr. Sims of the British Mu-
seum and Mr. Netherclift. The bundle of letters to Mad-
ame Coulomb and the Mahatma letters, all fastened to-
gether, were endorsed: “The whole of the writings contained
in this packet are by the hand of Mme. Blavatsky whether
acknowledged to be genuine or otherwise.”

Theosophists have also kept alive the exaggerated stories
of a missionary plot. H.P.B. charged that the missionaries
raised a large fund to fight her, paid the Coulombs $3,300
4 A. O. Hume: Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, p. 120.

241

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

for the letters, and put them on a salary of $1,500 a year.
“I have learned the whole extent and magnitude of the
conspiracy against the belief in the Mahatmas; it was a ques-
tion of life or death to the Missions in India, and they
thought that by killing me they would kill Theosophy. . . .
How terribly they will be laughed at some day. En atten-
dant, they are busy crucifying me, it seems.” 5

The idea is flattering to the Theosophical ego, but the
missionaries never took the Theosophists seriously enough
to warrant such an elaborate offensive. The Reverend
George Patterson, Editor of the Christian College Maga-
zine, wrote a dignified and sensible introduction in publish-
ing the letters. Madame Coulomb had brought in the let-
ters; they did not buy them outright, but paid a total of
fifty dollars for their use and later returned them. They ex-
purgated the passages printed and deleted H.P.B’s con-
temptuous references to General Morgan and other asso-
ciates as uselessly offensive. Of the forty letters brought to
them, they published less than half, using only material
that supported their charge that the phenomena were fraud-
ulent.

Reaching Adyar on December 18, 1884, Hodgson asked
first to see the Shrine, but was refused permission by Damo-
dar. No one could be admitted to the second floor without
special orders from Madame Blavatsky, who was still in
Ceylon. When she arrived, the compound was in a fever of
plots and rumors, and the Shrine had disappeared. Nobody
admitted knowing what had happened, but it was suggested
that the Coulombs and the missionaries had stolen it. The
truth was that the Theosophists in a panic had burned it.
After patient probing, Hodgson secured from Dr. Hart-
mann a statement of what had happened.

The Shrine had been accepted on faith. The Indians,
prostrating themselves before it, buried their faces in their
hands as before an idol; Europeans were prevented from in-

8 Letters H.P.B., p. 99.

242

Leading TheosopTiists after Madame Blaoatshif s death , . Front rota: Colonel Olcott.

c* e W7 4n«io r7/n/>OT/7rrt«/iffi R/ro«i

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

specting it by the chelas’ superstitious awe and fear of “des-
ecration.” Dr. Hartmann summed it up in a burst of exas-
peration: “Nobody was allowed to touch that damned
Shrine .” 6 Damodar, succeeding to the custody of the sec-
ond floor when the Coulombs left, had stood off everyone
until the publication of the Coulomb letters. The trustees
had then insisted on inspecting the Shrine to prove, as they
fondly believed, that the charges were false. Reluctantly
Damodar unlocked the door, and the party swept up the
stairs.

Eagerly they lifted the Shrine down and stood it on the
floor. One of the group struck the back of it with his hand,
exclaiming: “You see, it is quite solid,” whereupon a middle
panel, controlled by a spring, flew up in his face. In conster-
nation, they hid the guilty thing in Damodar’s room over-
night. They did not know how to get rid of it: a bonfire
might be noticed and remembered. The following night
under cover of darkness, it was carried to a far comer of the
compound, where William Q. Judge, as he subsequently
admitted, took the initiative in destroying it. In the pres-
ence of Dr. Hartmann and another unnamed Theosophist,
Judge hacked the magical cabinet apart and they patiently
burned it, one small piece at a time.

Eventually Hodgson gained admittance to the secret
room, but the Shrine was gone, the walls were freshly plas-
tered, and, as Damodar smugly remarked, there was noth-
ing left for him to see. The Theosophists had succumbed
to hysterical confusion, failing to realize that their destruc-
tion of evidence was tantamount to a confession of guilt
as conspirators. They tried to justify themselves on the
ground that M. Coulomb had built incriminating contrap-
tions in the Shrine Room, unknown to H.P.B. and after
her departure for Europe, as part of the plot against her.
Under Hodgson’s examination this defense did not stand
up any better than the others. Nor did it account for the

6 Society for Psychical Research, Proceedings, Vol. Ill, part 9.

243

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Shrine. H.P.B. admitted to Hodgson that it had sliding pan-
els, though zealous apologists have tried to deny the fact.
H.P.B. said that she provided the panels in order that “the
Shrine might be more easily taken to pieces and packed in
case of removal.” The explanation fails to explain. H.P.B.
took no other precautions for moving, and had in fact set-
tled down at Adyar presumably for the rest of her life. Even
accepting the excuse does not help, because the frame of
the Shrine was solid; sliding panels up and down the back
of a solid cupboard four feet square would not make it
easier to pack.

The Indian chelas banded together to thwart Hodgson,
but several European Theosophists refused to join the con-
spiracy. One of the latter showed him, hidden away in a
godown, the window frame that had stood in the opening
between H.P.B’s bed-alcove and the back of the Shrine.
Hodgson built duplicates of the missing equipment, using,
where needed, estimated dimensions furnished by Dr. Hart-
mann. He found that objects were easily handed back and
forth through the twelve-inch recess behind the Shrine and
that it could be operated precisely according to H.P.B’s in-
structions in the disputed letters to Madame Coulomb.

Comparison of two floor plans of Madame’s apartment
illustrates Theosophical evasiveness. The Hodgson plan was
prepared by Mr. Hodgson with the assistance of Dr. Hart-
mann, Mr. Hume and others, and may be accepted as re-
liable. It will be observed that the plan prepared by Mr.
Judge omits all details which might be incriminating.

In the neighboring French settlement of Saint-Thom6,
named long ago for the doubting Saint Thomas, Hodgson
went to call on the Coulombs. As the three sat talking in
a modest bungalow, something white grazed Hodgson’s
head and fell at his feet. It was a letter addressed to him,
and it commented on the subject they were at the moment
discussing— premonitions. Madame Coulomb explained that
although they had not stirred for the past ten minutes, they

244

Terrace

Floor plans of the secret room and shrine, Adyar
Above, Mr. Judge's plan; below, Mr. Hodgsons plan

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

had “precipitated” the letter, and by the same means used
by H.P.B. The ceilings of this bungalow, like the Theo-
sophical dwellings in Adyar and Bombay, were supported
by beams, the spaces between filled in with blocks of
wood and mortar. At the junction of a long beam with
crossblocks, M. Coulomb had scraped out part of the mor-
tar, just enough so that a' letter could slide in to lie flat on
the beam. A thread tied loosely around the letter ran across
the ceiling, through an open door, and around the comer.
Hodgson had been invited to take a chair placed directly
under the beam. When M. Coulomb casually introduced
the subject of premonitions, Madame Coulomb called to
her dog, a prearranged signal; a servant standing out of sight
on the verandah pulled the thread and the letter fell. The
servant had only to pick up the thread to remove all evi-
dence of this bit of magic. The Latins had a phrase for it,
deus ex machina, which meant originally the simple ma-
chinery used in the ancient Roman theatre for showing
gods moving about in the air.

In the course of his investigation, Hodgson visited the
stores where Madame Coulomb claimed to have bought
stage properties for H.P.B. He found a receipt book no-
tation of the delivery at Adyar on May 25, 1883, of a pair
of vases that dovetailed neatly with the entry in Olcott’s
diary for May 26; he had that day returned from his tour
and was delighted with the pair of vases presented to him
by the Masters. In another shop Hodgson found a sales
memorandum of the sale to Madame Coulomb on July 3,
1883, of a pair of pin trays. This was a day or two before
H.P.B. left for her summer in Ooty; presumably the identi-
cal second tray was substituted for the broken pieces of the
first, deposited in the Shrine, thereby securing General Mor-
gan as H.P.B’s impassioned defender.

Even here, on their native heath, the Mahatmas re-
mained aloof and refused to perform for the investigation.
Hodgson, however, questioned every eye-witness of previ-

245

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ous phenomena he could reach; the contradictions in the
resulting accounts conformed to the temperaments and
emotional dispositions of the individuals. The witnesses
may be classified in four groups:

Skeptics. A minority; men interested in psychic phenom-
ena who were able to withstand or throw off H.P.B’s power
of suggestion. Hume and Massey, in this class, gave Hodg-
son important information and helpful clues.

Committed but Suspicious. Another minority; men like
Subba Row, who had drifted along, fascinated by H.P.B.,
becoming more deeply involved than they realized; when
the test came, H.P.B. had failed to alter their standards,
and they joined the skeptics in offering Hodgson every as-
sistance in discovering the truth.

Converts. A majority; most of them seeking escape from
fears, affronts to their pride, a sense of guilt for old sins,
dark things they had dragged through the years. H.P.B’s in-
sidious attack upon the world’s accepted standards of honor
encountered feeble resistance because they were emotion-
ally absorbed in a proffered short-cut to Security. So Olcott,
Sinnett, and Mohini could ignore good naturedly H.P.B’s
pecadillos, her childish pretensions, her bungled phe-
nomena.

Confederates. Beginning with the Coulombs, Babula,
and Damodar, the Report identified half a dozen; there may
have been more. Indians, Europeans, chelas, and lay-chelas,
they did as they were told and asked no questions. Most of
them were on the payroll. H.P.B. ruled them ambidex-
trously, through glamour and through fear. They worked
under abnormal tension; several came to suicide and other
disastrous ends. Distinguishing between the confederates,
Hodgson discarded Babula’s evidence as completely un-
trustworthy. Damodar, though not on the payroll, was a
neurotic, unstable lad whose personal difficulties made him
a problem child from first to last.

246

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

The investigation was conducted quietly, diplomati-
cally. In spite of the prejudice against him, Hodgson se-
cured fair co-operation from the Europeans and from the
more intelligent Indians. The crowning tribute to Hodgson
was penned by H.P.B. herself on March 17, 1885, when, at
the end of his three months of intensive work, she described
him to Sinnett as “an excellent, truthful, expert young
man.” 7 She continued to think well of him until she saw
his report!

On the basis of Hodgson’s two-hundred-page report, his
Committee publicly sponsored the following conclusions:

that the so-called Coulomb letters were written by Madame
Blavatsky;

that the Mahatma letters were also written by Madame
Blavatsky;

that Madame Blavatsky used sliding panels in the back of her
Shrine for the insertion of letters and other objects;

a strong presumption that all evidence of the existence of the
Mahatmas and their occult powers may be explamed as due
either to deliberate deception by H.P.B. or to hallucination
and unconscious misrepresentation by witnesses.

The Report considered all the important incidents and
controversies in which Theosophists had been involved. In
the Kiddle case it found that “proof of deliberate plagia-
rism, aggravated by a fictitious defense is irresistible.” It
examined the Massey-Ski fiasco at length, using evidence
supplied by Mr. Massey. It doubted Madame’s claims to
residence and training in Tibet, and pointed out that such
claims were very recent. Hodgson concluded that the Rus-
sian spy charges had some foundation in fact, and that
they supplied the only adequate motive for her ten years of
unremitting toil. He dismissed the ambition to establish a
world religion as a motive because her personality defects
“removed her ineffably from the Saint Theresa type.” He

7 Mahatma Letters, p. 473.

247

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

may have overdiscounted her interest in her own brand of
religion. Madame heartily enjoyed exercising the power of
a cult leader. On the other hand, her spying would appear
to have been on a volunteer basis, for it is hard to imagine
anyone less qualified to carry out confidential missions,
whether for the Russian Little Father or for the Mahatmas.

A young scholar, eager to do a creditable piece of work
on his first major assignment, Hodgson had come to India
hoping to find some new discovery, a clue to new powers
that would give his report historic importance. His prepos-
sessions, he acknowledged were “distinctly in favor of oc-
cultism and Madame Blavatsky.” In the end he had to ad-
mit that he had not found one genuine phenomenon; it
was a “huge fraudulent system worked out by Madame Bla-
vatsky” with the aid of her confederates and dupes. The
Report maintained an admirably objective tone, recogniz-
ing and appreciating honest co-operation in trying to get at
the truth, distinguishing between shades of good faith of
the chelas and lay-chelas, exonerating the Colonel from wil-
ful deception while showing “extraordinary credulity and
inaccuracy in observation and inference.” The Report’s
judgment on Madame Blavatsky was boiled down into one
withering sentence:

We regard her neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers nor
as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think she has achieved a title
to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished,
ingenious and interesting impostors in history.

2. FAREWELL TO INDIA

(1885)

It was a belligerent Madame who came back to Adyar on
December 21, 1884. Several hundred students from the
Madras Missionary College, which had published the Cou-
lomb letters met her at the station, decked her with gar-

248

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

lands, sprinkled her with perfume, and read a flowery
address of welcome. A Western woman friendly to Indian
nationalism was under attack, and they wanted to show
their sympathy, besides which to do so was an easy way to
annoy their prunes-and-prisms lady missionaries. H.P.B.
was so deeply moved that she got to her feet and stammered
out her thanks, the only time that the Colonel heard her
even try to speak in public. As usual in moments of emo-
tion, she fell back on the Bible: "Her accusers had sold her
out when her back was turned like Judas Iscariot.”

Far from chastened, H.P.B. was returning in a tense and
triumphant mood. On her way home she had stopped off
at Cairo and tracked down the family of M. Coulomb, from
whom she had learned some damaging stories about his
wife, and she had picked up rumors involving both of them
in a fraudulent bankruptcy. She would not only sue the mis-
sionaries, but the Coulombs as well. Unfortunately she had
less than a week to get ready for the ninth annual gather-
ing of the Theosophical Society, and she had to postpone
her plans for revenge until after the convention.

Mechanically H.P.B. went through the routine of a Lady
Founder, joining the dignitaries on the pillared verandah for
a group photograph, a motley collection of turbans and
costumes gathered from all over India. She did not relax,
but sat up straight in her big chair, attended by the Cooper-
Oakleys and the two white-bearded patriarchs. Colonel 01-
cott and General Morgan. She looked exhausted; it was
almost the only picture in which she forgot to try to con-
ceal the folds of flesh hanging loose about her neck. She
might well look tired, for between sessions she was engaged
in a war of words that went on and on like the unraveling
of a long knitted scarf. The legal talent of the Society,
Subba Row and Sir S. Subramania Iyer, were supporting
Olcott and ranged against her, for she alone refused to rec-
ognize how badly she would fare in any law court. They

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were trying to persuade her not to sue for libel because they
shuddered at the thought of the Old Lady in the hands of
a cross-examiner, contradicting herself, getting excited,
making progressively wilder statements until she lost all
control and told the lawyers, the court and the entire Brit-
ish government where they could go!

Lashing at her advisers, H.P.B. accused them of coward-
ice and lack of faith in the Masters; but it was the lack of
her faith in herself that she resented. Far into the nights
they struggled, H.P.B. with eyes blazing and face livid, ca-
joling, storming, cursing. The men talked in relays, retiring
exhausted to reassure each other that this time they must
make a stand and protect the Old Lady from herself. Fi-
nally the Colonel secured a compromise under threat that
if she did not yield they would all resign and leave her in
the wreckage. Sulkily she agreed to abide by the decision
of the one hundred delegates, and the question of suing the
missionaries and the Coulombs was presented on the floor
of the convention, which voted unanimously that “Mad-
ame Blavatsky should not prosecute her defamers in a court
of law.” Olcott had provided his partner with an alibi: she
could blame her failure to prosecute on the stupidity of her
colleagues. Ironically, most of H.P.B’s devotees today hold
Olcott responsible for her troubles at this time, and refer
reproachfully to “the betrayal of H.P.B.”

Distraught and resentful, H.P.B. wasted no time in
brooding. Before the last of the convention guests had left
the compound, Adyar was honored by visits from the Mas-
ters on two successive nights. In spite of all the recent pub-
licity, and with Hodgson on the premises, H.P.B. still had
confederates available and the courage to use them. A minor
member of the hierarchy, Djual Khool, waked Olcott on
the night of January 7, 1885, for a confidential chat; on the
following night the Master Morya visited H.P.B. and left
with her the plan for a new book to be “dictated to her by

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SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

the Masters.” During the several years of hard times imme-
diately ahead, she clung to this commission as to a life pre-
server. In the end the outline was discarded, but she
emerged triumphantly with another two volume opus. The
Secret Doctrine.

Although she could not forsee that within three months
she would leave India forever, H.P.B. was in a savage mood
just when she most needed to be gracious and diplomatic.
Olcott escaped on a propaganda trip to Burma, taking with
him the latest probationer, Leadbeater, whom he described
as “a village curate out on a bust.” Olcott’s tour had scarcely
begun when he was recalled by a cablegram from Damodar:
H.P.B. was dying. She had signed another deathbed state-
ment, and the chelas stood about with long faces. At the
last moment the Masters intervened and once more saved
her life.

The compound had been tense after Olcott left, with
H.P.B. sulking on her rooftop and no one to keep things
going. The place bristled with petty court cabals and plain
backroom politics. Lane-Fox, the gentleman who had lost
his temper and struck M. Coulomb, had played up to
H.P.B’s weakness for good manners and the old school tie,
and had enjoyed a brief period as favorite. He was shown a
letter from the Master Morya that abused Olcott as a bum-
bling old fool and said some very pleasant things about
Lane-Fox. The Master had accredited him as a special envoy
to influence the burra sahibs (vernacular for important peo-
ple— English officials) in favor of Theosophy. It went to
Lane-Fox’s head: as heir apparent he would breathe new
life into the demoralized Society. His first concern was to
get rid of Olcott and his vulgar American accent. He
teamed up with Dr. Hartmann for the indoctrination of
H.P.B. herself. Hartmann had ingratiated himself by writ-
ing two pamphlets defending her against the Coulomb
charges. The first, labeled “Private and Confidential,” un-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

dertook to justify the most extreme claims for Theosophy;
in February a more moderate second pamphlet broke the
news that the prosecutions had been dropped. 8

Lane-Fox was promoting a reorganization of the Adyar
management. It would, first, depose Olcott; next, the organ-
ization, including the magazine and publishing business,
which had netted a profit of five thousand dollars in its first
five years under Olcott’s management, would be turned
over to a committee composed chiefly of Lane-Fox and
Hartmann. They made good progress with a whispering
campaign against Olcott and for themselves, induced H.P.B.
to sign a paper authorizing the plan, and secured a letter of
endorsement from the Master Morya. But they worked too
fast. After signing the paper on February 5, 1885, H.P.B.
went to bed, cabled for Olcott and had Damodar tell every-
one she was dying. Her panic had other contributing causes,
chiefly the arrival of the English mail with a copy of the
last Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. It
outlined the scope of Hodgson’s proposed investigation and
gave H.P.B. a paralyzing preview of what she might expect.

On the Colonel’s return, H.P.B. repudiated the Lane-Fox
reorganization plan and put the two aspirants in their places
by exhibiting a severe letter from the Master Morya; he
certified in pseudo-legalistic language that he had never,
as they falsely claimed, accused Olcott of incompetence or
approved turning over the management to Mr. Lane-Fox
and his committee. Within a week H.P.B. was up and
around, and Olcott hurried back to Burma, only to be re-
called four weeks later by another cabled summons to
H.P.B’s bedside. She had had to send this message herself,
for Damodar was gone. On February 23 he quietly disap-

8 Dr. Franz Hartmann: Report of Observations made during a nine-
months stay at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar ,
( Madras, India, September 1884 ) . Also, Report of the Result of an Inves-
tigation into the Charges against Madame Blavatsky Brought by Mission-
aries of the Scottish Free Church at Madras and Examined by Committee
Appointed for That Purpose by General Council of The Theosophical So-
ciety (Madras: Scottish Press, February 1885).

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peared, leaving a note to say that he had been summoned
by the Masters to Tibet. Theosophists have several versions
of the Damodar legend. The orthodox believe that he really
did join the Masters in Tibet. The heterodox tell a story
of his departing on foot, carrying only a staff, without warm
clothing or supplies, and of his body being found frozen
to death in the foothills of those high Himalayas which
Madame had chosen as the abode of her Mahatmas. The
real story is probably less romantic. Under Hodgson’s skilful
questioning, Damodar had cut a poor figure; trapped into
contradictions and falsehoods, he was painfully discredited.
H.P.B’s panic over the investigation had further depressed
him; if she, with her supernatural powers, was so frightened,
what chance had he at the hands of the relentless English
Sahib? Although Damodar was a wild-eyed, neurotic look-
ing lad, he came of a substantial family, and had the quiver-
ing, sensitive pride characteristic of high-caste Indians. He
had given H.P.B. his complete faith, and now she had noth-
ing to suggest. Perhaps it had been his fault that those astral
trips were only pretended; perhaps it was true, as she said,
that if his faith had been stronger, they would have been
real experiences. Even now, if he took the Mahatmas at
their word, put himself literally at their mercy, perhaps they
would have pity and carry him away on a last sublime astral
journey, away from trouble and care forever and ever. Per-
haps it was something like this that happened to Damodar.

The tempo accelerated to a dizzy whirl. On March 11,
Hodgson returned to the compound. He had been at work
in Bombay, Simla, and Calcutta, searching out witnesses of
the phenomena, visiting places where they had occurred.
Hume, who had rendered invaluable assistance, returned to
Madras with him and called the inner circle into conference
on March 13. Although susceptible to the lure of occultism,
Hume was a realist and sensed his own embarrassing posi-
tion when the S. P. R. report appeared. It would not only
blast H.P.B’s reputation, but it would advertise the entire

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

group of Theosophists, past and present, as “muffs and do-
mestic imbeciles” unless they had a thorough houseclean-
ing. And they must have it now, so that Hodgson, who was
sailing on March 26, would know about it before writing
his report.

The Theosophists also faced internal difficulties. H.P.B’s
failure to sue the missionaries was beginning to appear in-
criminating, and the branches were writing in to ask ques-
tions. The chelas and lay-chelas held long conferences, and
for the first time were free to say what they thought: H.P.B.
had gone to bed again, and Olcott was still in Burma. Hume
had given the press a strong statement repudiating the Cou-
lomb letters on the cynical ground that “Madame Blavatsky
is no fool”; he could not believe, he said, that she would
give Madame Coulomb “the entire power over her future
that the writing of such letters involves.” But that was when
they had first appeared. After working with Hodgson he was
forced to face the magnitude of her fraud. Dominating the
conference, he insisted on admitting Hodgson to their de-
liberations as an evidence of good faith; after all, their motto
was: “There is no religion higher than the Truth”!

Hume led the discussion into such plain talk and frank
admissions that the wall of mystery behind which the chelas
had been crouching blew away like a fog. Most of the Euro-
peans joined in, and once they had begun to talk, all sorts
of bottled-up exasperations came bursting out. It was when
some of the devoted Indian chelas who perjured themselves
to the bitter end insisted that the Shrine had a solid back
that Hartmann growled that they knew nothing about it be-
cause “nobody was allowed to touch that damned Shrine.”
The next thing he knew Hartmann had admitted that his
propaganda pamphlets were full of false statements and
he had given Hodgson a written eye-witness account of the
burning of the Shrine. Judge, realizing that the game was
up, confessed that it was he who burned the pieces of wood.

It was almost like a revival, and they found emotional re-

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SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

lief in dropping their masks and telling the truth. While
they were in the mood, Hume drew up resolutions admit-
ting that most of the phenomena were fraudulent and that
the Coulomb letters were written by Madame. He also
proposed two official actions:

to withdraw both of the Har tmann pamphlets as having been
written on inadequate information, and

to reorganize the Theosophical Society and accept the resigna-
tions of Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, Damodar, Babaji,
and Bhavani Shankar.**

Hume was going too far. Dr. Hartmann and the Cooper-
Oakleys combined to oppose him on the first two resolu-
tions, which would have undermined the foundations of
Theosophical pretensions, and the group refused to go on
record as to the authenticity of either the phenomena or
the Coulomb letters. However, they accepted Hume’s two
proposals for official action almost without change. The
Hartmann pamphlets were officially withdrawn and dis-
avowed (but Theosophists still base their defense of H.P.B.
upon the second pamphlet). The Society was reorganized.
H.P.B. resigned temporarily and left India permanently;
her confederates were repudiated; only Olcott remained ac-
tive. It was an overwhelming rebuff for Madame Blavatsky,
but worse followed. The missionaries had waited hopefully
for her lawsuit. When they realized that the Theosophists’
discretion outweighed their valor, they took the initiative
and sued General Morgan for libeling Madame Coulomb;
he had called her a forger in a fiery statement in defense of
H.P.B. The purpose of the suit was to force Madame Bla-
vatsky into court, where they could subject her to cross-
examination.

In the midst of this nightmare, new revelations about
H.P.B. rose from the past to disconcert the Colonel on his
return from Burma. Hodgson showed him early letters writ-
ten by H.P.B. to Hurrychund and the Arya Samajists while

* Another confederate.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

she was still in New York. Concerned only to impress these
Indians with her importance, H.P.B. had written disparag-
ingly of her partner. Olcott was no more than “a psycholo-
gized baby” completely under her thumb; she had such
magnetic power that she could make him believe anything
merely by looking into his eyes. The Yankees think them-
selves smart, she continued, and especially this Colonel Ol-
cott, but he would have to get up much earlier in the morn-
ing to be as smart as she. It took the Colonel by surprise
and he recoiled from the flippant egotism of the woman for
whom he had made great sacrifices. This was the darkest
hour of his life, and for a day or two he contemplated sui-
cide. “I was almost ready to go to the beach and drown my-
self in the sea.”

There was no time for heartaches, however. Everything
was lost for all of them if the missionaries succeeded in
dragging H.P.B. into court. She was unable by this time to
give any assistance in making plans. Dr. Hartmann’s seda-
tives had worn themselves out, and she could find no relief.
Her face flushed purple-red, her beautiful eyes glazed and
protruding from their sockets, she tramped the floor by the
hour, cursing and muttering. Or she would stand transfixed,
looking down from her rooftop into the heart of the com-
pound. Suddenly her little kingdom seemed infinitely de-
sirable. She watched the coming and going of chelas, serv-
ants, visitors, under the green casuarina trees; wistfully she
savored the pomp and circumstance with which she had
surrounded herself.

Downstairs, Olcott and his advisers were in conference
day and night. Listlessly, H.P.B. assented to their plans, and
they ordered Babula to pack her trunks. Fearing legal action
to detain her, Olcott outwitted courts and press by secur-
ing her passage to Europe under an assumed name. She was
accompanied by Dr. Hartmann, a personal maid-devotee,
Mary Flynn, and a neurotic but devoted Hindu chela,
known at that time as Babaji. Swathed in invalid wrappings,

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SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

H.P.B. in a hospital chair was wheeled down the long mole;
a hoisting tackle swung her aboard the steamer like a dead
thing. So ended Madame Blavatsky’s career in India. On
March 31, 1885, in a state of collapse, hiding under an as-
sumed name, a fugitive from the revenge of her late accom-
plice, Madame Coulomb, she bade the land of her Mahat-
mas a last farewell.

257

CHAPTER XVI

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

( i88j — 6 )

IT WAS appropriate that on reaching Europe in April
1885, H.P.B. should make straight for Mount Vesuvius, like
herself subject to volcanic eruptions. On board the steamer,
safe from the Coulombs and the courts, she had recovered
quickly, and long before reaching Naples was back in har-
ness, writing letters, pulling strings, working like a beaver
to repair her damaged fortunes.

Dr. Hartmann stayed with her only long enough to see
her settled in a modest pension at Torre del Greco. When
he left, she was dependent on Olcott’s remittances from the
magazine for support; maintaining two attendants, Babaji
and Mary Flynn, seems elaborate under the circumstances.
With no soft words, but making it clear that Olcott’s bun-
gling was responsible for all their troubles, she began at
once to break the news to him that she would need an in-
creased allowance. Torre del Greco was damp and raw, the
Italians did not understand cold weather, they should ob-
serve the Russians, the cold damp air blew in perpetually
under doors and windows, she would catch her death from
sitting with her feet on uncarpeted stone floors. “If you
have not sent me away to die, and since there is no money

258

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

for a better apartment or to buy carpets and rugs, please
send me the old carpet bought at Bombay ... to avoid
agony and suffering.”

She was less sorry for herself in the next letter, written on
April 29 to her Russian journalist friend: the view was mar-
vellous, the air healthy and the living “cheaper than stewed
turnip.” They could all four live here quite as comfortably
and much more economically than in Paris. She urged Sol-
ovyov to join her at once. She had some very special things
to tell him; it would be a magnificent place for him to write,
with her to furnish inspiration. She had had to leave India,
she explained, because of those abominable Russian spy
charges. The British government had no actual evidence
against her, but was so frightened by her “enormous influ-
ence over the Hindus” that it had officially declared her a
spy. Solovyov remained in Paris. Perhaps as a compatriot he
was better equipped to resist a Russian woman’s blandish-
ments than some of her other associates.

Cut off from Adyar and the magazine into which she had
poured her energies, H.P.B. resumed her old habit of writ-
ing letters in all directions. Before leaving India she had
been planning to recapture Sinnett, and now she tried to
reach him through his wife with oblique explanations in-
tended for the Sahib’s eyes. For she had been at it again,
making up to another medium, a shifty young Frenchman,
Gaboriau, whom she commissioned to mystify Sinnett. As
usual, the medium had bungled things. It was all a tragic
mistake, she wrote. Gaboriau was “a perfect fool,” but even
so, Sinnett had been unjust and unreasonable. True, she
had been forced to conceal certain things from Sinnett but,
“I have never deceived him, never tried to mislead him,
never lied to him.” 1 Surrendering on the Holloway issue,
she conceded that Sinnett might establish relations with
the Mahatmas in any way agreeable to them. The gesture
was a year too late. She had shipped Mrs. Holloway back to
1 Letters H.P.B. , p. 97.

259

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

the States, but she knew that Sinnett was talking directly
to the Mahatmas through other mediums and that she
could not stop him.

Compared with the arrogance of her halcyon days, this
was a different H.P.B. Now and again, in spite of herself,
a cry of genuine anguish burst forth. “My heart is broken,”
she wrote with moving simplicity. Her grief commands the
pity due an aging woman struggling against misfortune and
against her own temperament. She could not even remain
sincere in her grief, but had to embroider it with analogies
to the martyrdom of Jesus and appeals to be left to die “like
a mangy dog, quietly and alone in my comer.” And almost
invariably she fell back on her Napoleonic technique of
counterattack, laying the blame on the other fellow. The
Coulomb charges, “the quasi-ruin of the Society,” most of
their troubles, were really Sinnett’s fault. His greediness for
phenomena, his rushing ahead and publishing books to fur-
ther his own ambitions, and his thrusting them upon a
public not prepared to receive them were the root of all
their troubles. Sinnett was to blame. Now that she was dy-
ing as a result of her efforts on his behalf at Simla, he ap-
parently felt that she could no longer be of service to him,
so— “Let him drop me out of his life like a bad penny.”

Sinnett glanced back through numerous letters from the
Mahatmas urging him to write the books, entrusting all the
material to him with “full confidence in your tact and judg-
ment as to what should be printed, and how it should be
presented.” 2 He smiled grimly at the change of tone, but
journalists learn to be patient with the amateur's capricious
notions of the sweet uses of publicity.

Madame Blavatsky’s most significant move at this time
was a short letter to Miss Arundale and her mother. It re-
vealed that the instant India was closed to her she had a
plan ready. It was to break with her old partner, the Colonel,

2 A. P. Sinnett: Occult World, p. 104.

260

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

and ruthlessly strip him of power and income as soon as
she could find other financial support. Sauve quit pent.
Olcott had served her purpose and had become an irrita-
tion, but she must move cautiously for the Arundales liked
the man. The two reserved English women had enjoyed
the tall, impressive foreigner who told amusing stories in
his atrocious Yankee accent and brought a welcome breeze
of masculine vitality into their sheltered home. Madame
warned them against Olcott. He had let that Holloway
woman wind him around her finger, and was still corre-
sponding with her. Olcott was really responsible for all their
troubles, he had made an unfortunate impression on the
Psychical Researchers and now, in his monumental vanity,
was trying to throw the blame on her. H.P.B's verdict was
summary: Miss Arundale must help her to disconnect the
London Lodge from the parent Theosophical Society and
from the Adyar headquarters; she had resolved to cut loose
from India and build her own autonomous organization. In
justification she cited the antagonism between Indian and
European Theosophists.

What, H.P.B. asked, could Adyar offer the Arundales or
any other European? Nothing. The Hindu chelas distrusted
and hated the Europeans and were determined to prevent
their learning any of the secrets of occultism. Even Subba
Row was working against her in this matter; Subba Row,
the best mind in India, had accused her, as though it were
a terrible crime, of revealing the sacred and hidden secrets
of occultism to Europeans, and was plotting against her
because he feared the Western group would pump more
out of her. Skilfully playing Hindus and Europeans against
each other, fanning mutual distrust, H.P.B. wove her sea-
green web of fantasy. The thing these innocent English
gentlefolk wanted most in all the world was to learn these
alleged occult secrets. As long as she could convince them
that she had something in reserve, tantalizing secrets that

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

they did not know, she was safe. Such was her magic that
they still believed that she knew the answer to the Riddle
of the Universe.

2. EXILE — SAINT HELENA

(1885)

Exile was costing more than sentimental yearnings for
Adyar and the chelas. It cut Madame off from her liveli-
hood as editor of The Theosophist. When the English press
in India accused the Founders of exploiting Theosophy fi-
nancially, H.P.B. used to reply that the dues of the Society
did not pay its expenses and that they were obliged to sub-
sidize it. The joker was that they held the magazine, as their
private property, which enabled them to live comfortably,
travel, and pay the expenses of the headquarters. It was
impractical, however, to try to edit the magazine from Eu-
rope. Madame always claimed to be earning generous sums
from the Russian press, but the collection of her complete
works includes few translations from foreign sources, indi-
cating that such earnings were negligible. 3 She resented de-
pendence upon the Colonel’s faithfulness with her monthly
allowance of one hundred dollars, and it only added fuel
to her rage against her old partner.

After three months on Vesuvius, H.P.B. was ready for
a little sightseeing. Accompanied by Babaji and Mary
Flynn, she spent a week in Rome and visited Solovyov, who
was vacationing at a smart resort in the Alps with an attrac-
tive young Parisienne, Madame de Morsier, a leader of the
French Theosophists. It was mid-afternoon of August 8,
1885, when H.P.B. reached Saint-Cergues, and the visitors
had gathered to await the delivery of the post by the Ge-
neva diligence that brought H.P.B. Solovyov, self-conscious
about the impression his guests were making, has left an
amusing picture of the scene:

* H. P. Blavatsky: Complete Works.

262

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

Suddenly there sprang from the diligence a strange creature,
something half way between a great ape and a tiny black man
[Babaji]. Its leanness was amazing. A poor half European sort of
dress half dangled on it, as though there were nothing but bones
beneath; a face the size of a fist, of a dark cinnamon color and
without any signs of vegetation; on the head a dense cap of long
curling black hair; huge eyes also perfectly black, of course, with
a frightened and suspicious expression. The black man said
something in English with a piping but at the same time hoarse
voice.

After him emerged a clumsy young person with a red, discon-
certed and not particularly intelligent face [Mary Flynn]. The
public gazed open-mouthed at the black man. But the most in-
teresting was yet to come. The black man and the clumsy young
woman and then I and Madame de Morsier succeeded with great
difficulty in extracting from the diligence something that was
shut up in it. This something was Madame herself, all swollen,
tired out with travelling, grumbling; with a huge dark grey
face, and wide open eyes like two round, discolored tourquoises.
On her head was set a very high grey felt firemens helmet with
ventilators and a veil. Her globular figure seemed yet more
globular from an incredible sort of sacque in which she was
draped.

Inevitably, H.P.B. was not pleased with her accommoda-
tions. The pension had reserved three rooms, but they were
not adjoining as requested. Babaji and Mary Flynn could
do nothing to divert her rage and stood helpless before her
with tears in their eyes. Turning to the embarrassed Mad-
ame de Morsier and Solovyov, H.P.B. appealed for sym-
pathy:

There my friends, now you see my position yourselves. Some
days I can move neither hand nor foot and he like a log, and no
one to help me to anythmg. Bavaji only spins like a top, and this
Mashka Flynn is a born fool, and I curse the day when I agreed
to take her with me. You see the fact is, she was dreadfully bored
at home and thought that she could find some agreeable distrac-
tions in travelling; and can you imagine, as soon as a man shows
his face she is all over ribbons, she rolls her eyes and generally
behaves in the most unbecoming way, though she is a Buddhist.
Why she took to Buddhism, I cannot conceive. And yet, though

263

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

she is a fool”— Madame suddenly recollected herself— “yet just
ask her, she sees the Master almost everyday when he appears
to her. Mary, come here.

Mashka ran up panting, with a frightened expression on her
red face,

“Tell the truth, do you see the Master?”

"Oh yes, yes, I see him.”

“There now, you seel Why should she lie? And she is such a
fool that she could not even make up a lie; she does see and
there is an end of it. Now go and disprove her, or say that she
has hallucinations every dayl And yet, according to the psychical
gentlemen, I invented the Mahatmas myself! *

Forgetting Mary Flynn and Babaji, H.P.B. launched
into such a violent tirade against the Coulombs and mis-
sionaries that it was almost necessary to restrain her by
force. In the midst of the invective, her mood shifted, her
face and voice changed, and she soared into other spheres.
In an instant she had become a prophetess, inspired, trans-
figured, expressing her thoughts with the simple felicity of
a mystic who has experienced revelations not vouchsafed
to ordinary mortals.

At Wurzburg, H.P.B. was joined in December 1885 by
the Countess Wachtmeister, her only intimate woman dis-
ciple before Annie Besant. Approaching sixty, H.P.B. was in
failing health, and little as she liked her own sex, she appre-
ciated the usefulness of a devoted woman who could sleep
in the same room and take constant care of her. If the
woman had private means, so much the better. Some day
the Colonel might forget or run out of funds. The neo-
phytes seemed to thrive on neglect, and one wonders
whether it was part of their training or whether H.P.B. was
just being herself. The Countess Wachtmeister’s experi-
ence, as she recounted it, was typical. All her life the Count-
ess had experienced the tantalizing intuitions of the semi-
mystical: she was clairvoyant and clairaudient. On reaching
the no-man’s-land of middle age, however, she had to give

* Solovyoff: pp. 135-8.

BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

up holding stances because, when in a trance, she was un-
able to censor the ribald messages that came through from
her “controls.” Her photographs suggest a torpid woman
with heavy-lidded eyes and a dumpy figure. She was ex-
cessively shy, but not torpid. On the contrary, she showed
herself alert and resourceful, and when occasion arose to
protect her beloved guru, she could be as brave as a lion.

The Countess had met H.P.B. in May 1884, at a party
at the Sinnetts’. At first she was repelled by the atmosphere
of fawning flattery: wherever H.P.B. appeared, the floor at
her feet was packed with adorers, and the Countess flinched
at the suspicion that H.P.B. encouraged this sticky adula-
tion. Her mounting infatuation swept away her doubts, but
she could not bring herself to join the mob, and at a second
party contented herself with talking to Olcott and watching
H.P.B. from a distance. She would have been surprised to
know that H.P.B. was also watching her. Even in London
drawing rooms, titled and unattached widows with private
means are not too common.

A fortnight later, setting out for Sweden, the Countess
received a telegram from H.P.B. in Paris asking her to come
over for a private talk. Disregarding warnings against this
Russian adventuress, she hurried across the Channel only
to find that Madame and her retinue were visiting at the
country estate of the Countess d’Adhemar. Countess
Wachtmeister meekly trailed after her, but when she sent
in her card at the castle, was informed that Madame was
occupied. She sent word back that, having come by request,
she would wait until Madame was ready to see her. This
proved to be the correct play, for she was at once ushered
through a crowded salon and briefly introduced to Madame.

The Countess joined Madame’s court, seeing her only at
table and in the evening, surrounded by lion-hunters ten
and twenty deep. She was waiting for a summons to her pri-
vate interview, and trustfully assumed that she was being
tested. Fortunately for her illusions, she never found out

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that H.P.B. was locked in her room wrestling with a very
difficult letter: she was framing her ill-fated reply to Mas-
sey’s charges of complicity in the Ski fraud. Several days
passed and Countess Wachtmeister, embarrassed at accept-
ing further hospitality from the Countess d’Adhemar, sent
word that she was leaving the next day. She was at once
summoned to Madame’s room. Sweeping Massey and her
other problems out of her mind, H.P.B. concentrated her
charm and understanding upon this shy and lonely woman.
The Countess was dazed by H.P.B’s ability to read her
thoughts, by her intimate knowledge of her past life and
of her problems. Confidently, H.P.B. prophesied that
within two years the Countess would abandon all other
interests and devote her life to Theosophy. The Countess
protested that it was impossible: she had a son, family ties,
landed interests in Sweden. But H.P.B. smiled her sphinx-
like smile, looked her through and through with dazzling
eyes, “shining with a serene light which seemed to pene-
trate and unveil the secrets of my heart,” and, after an im-
pressive pause, told her: “Master says so, and therefore I
know it to be true.”

After the death of H.P.B. the Countess wrote a clear,
straightforward book of recollections.' It was loyally ex-
purgated and gave no hint of the doors that constantly
popped open to reveal dangling skeletons. In what she did
say, the Countess gave the impression of being truthful, and
her memoir is one of the most credible sources of informa-
tion about H.P.B. It is a fascinating firsthand account of
how to win friends and build a cult, but has little value for
prospective cult leaders. For who, by taking thought, may
hope to imitate the subtle magnetism inherent in Madame’s
magic? It was fleeting and intangible as the fragrance of
the spring evenings of youth.

The Countess, travelling back to Sweden, found herself
unable to sleep, and as the wheels of the wagonrlit pounded

Countess Constance Wachtmeister: Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky.

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BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

out their syncopated monotone she pondered whether she
could overturn the barriers that hedged her in. Madame’s
uncanny power of suggestion was at work. Within two years
the prophecy came true: the Countess sold her beloved
estate overlooking the sea and readjusted her family affairs
in order to be free to devote herself to Madame. Vainly her
friends protested that the Russian woman was making a
fool of her. It was too late; H.P.B. had cast hey spell, and
the Countess was beyond their reach.

En route to spend the winter of 1885-6 in Italy, the
Countess received a telegram: “Come to Wurzburg at once.
Wanted immediately. H.P.B.” Canceling all arrangements,
she set off on a visit that was to last four years, until she
was supplanted by new disciples. She found Madame es-
tablished in two spacious rooms on the select Ludwigstrasse.
H.P.B. apologized for having no guestroom; she had feared
the Countess might be a fine lady who would object to shar-
ing her bedroom. But the Master had told her it would be
all right. So she bought a screen to serve as a partition and
sent the telegram.

The Master was right. Countess Wachtmeister was happy
to share H.P.B’s bedroom, liked Wurzburg, was pleased
with everything except Babaji, whom she described as a
nervous, dwarfish creature with bright beady eyes, a shrill
voice and sly manner, always in the way. She quietly dis-
posed of him by inducing her friend Frau Gebhard to invite
him to the big house at Elberfeld for the winter. The
Wurzburg manage presented picturesque possibilities: a
Countess and a lady with a lurid past and psychic present
holding daily persiflage with the demigods. In reality, they
were disappointing: two elderly, homely women in a provin-
cial town, tied down to the solitary confinement of grinding
out a book— for H.P.B. was at work on Secret Doctrine, and
the Countess was making a fair copy by hand. Life soon fell
into a routine built around the book.

Louise, the maid, brought them six o’clock coffee in bed.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

By seven, H.P.B. was at her desk. After a stop for eight
o’clock breakfast, she worked until one o’clock dinner. No
one dared interrupt her: at meal times the Countess gently
rang a bell outside her door. Sometimes she came at once,
sometimes not for an hour or so, to the despair of Louise,
who had to cook a fresh dinner unless the Countess took
pity and sent her over to the hotel to bring Madame's din-
ner in on a tray. In the afternoon, back to work until six or
seven, when tea was served. After that, H.P.B. relaxed, sit-
ting back in the big armchair that Herr Gebhard had
thoughtfully provided, laying out endless games of patience,
toting up the score with a bit of chalk on the baize-covered
top of her card table while the Countess read aloud from
the spiritualist press and current magazines.

The Countess was shocked by H.P.B’s physical indolence
and tried to induce her to go driving, but in their first half-
year got her out of the house only three times. The doctor,
calling once a week to check on H.P.B., brought them bits
of gossip; sometimes the landlord stopped by with an amuS'
ing story. Otherwise they were alone; alone not only in
Wurzburg, but almost alone in the whole, wide world.

The process of writing Secret Doctrine was suffused with
mystery. One day early in 1886, the Countess, summoned
by H.P.B., found the study floor strewn with half-written
sheets of paper. H.P.B. petulantly explained that she had
tried twelve times to write a certain page, but each time the
Master had ordered her to do it over. An hour later she tri-
umphantly called to the Countess that she had finally sat-
isfied her exigent taskmaster. Leaning back, sipping a cup
of coffee and smoking, she described how she worked. She
emptied her mind, made a mental vacuum. As she looked
into it, scene after scene passed before her like the succes-
sive pictures of a diorama. If she wanted to quote from a
book, she need not visit a library; the astral counterpart of
the required page appeared before her and she had only to
copy down the words. H.P.B's imagination had leaped

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BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

ahead halt a century and anticipated the modem microfilm
and moving picture. At night the Masters provided even
more direct aid, for in the morning the Countess would
notice on the desk sheets of paper covered with unfamiliar
characters in red and blue pencil. These were “precipitated
messages” left by the Masters during the night, outlining
the day’s work for H.P.B.

The monotonous routine was pleasantly interrupted now
and again by baffling incidents that added spice to life.
H.P.B. now had no confederates to assist her, but she man-
aged very well. At breakfast, while the Countess was buried
in the morning paper, a letter she had just read, lying beside
her place, would vanish to reappear hours or days later bear-
ing a red-penciled message from the Master. Even the pro-
saic daily constitutional was touched with trailing clouds
of mystery, as when on unwrapping a cake of soap, bought
that afternoon from the village chemist, she found a mes-
sage from the Master tucked inside the wrapper. A cuckoo
clock on H.P.B’s wall behaved in eccentric fashion, bells
rang, candles and lamps flickered— slight variations of the
bag of tricks that had mystified Tiflis and Rugodevo, only
now instead of spirit controls it was the Masters who were
responsible.

At night the Countess lying awake and brooding over her
charge heard raps every ten minutes all night long, whether
H.P.B. was asleep or awake. H.P.B. explained that it was a
psychic telegraph communicating with her Master in Tibet,
permitting the Master’s chelas to keep watch over her body
while she in astral form was absent, roaming the Universe.
In an emergency one night the Countess waked H.P.B.,
who responded only after some delay with an agonized cry:
“My heart, my heart, Countess, you have nearly killed me.”
The Countess flew to her bedside. “I was with Master,”
gasped H.P.B., “why did you call me back?” Frightened and
remorseful, the Countess found H.P.B’s heart palpitating
wildly, dosed her with digitalis, nursed her back to normal.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Never again did the chastened Countess presume to disturb
H.P.B’s sleep.

Lucky Countess! She had the gift of faith. She could give
her complete trust to this whimsical guru, whose abraca-
dabra transmuted life’s dull monotony into glittering en-
chantment.

Shielded from harsh reality by the solicitude of the
Countess, H.P.B. still managed to involve herself in vexa-
tions of spirit. Her chela Mohini, who had once refused to
shake hands with contaminated Westerners, was now in-
volved in a scandal with some English girls in Paris. Mad-
ame Blavatsky was a woman of the world. Brought up under
sophisticated standards, she had as a young woman per-
mitted herself the utmost license. After reaching India, she
changed sides and imposed a rigid asceticism upon her
chelas. It is anyone’s privilege to eschew the lusts of the
flesh, but Madame waited until she was nearly fifty, and
even then she never pretended to give up such indulgences
as meat and chain-smoking.

In the case of Mohini, she lost her head and behaved like
a narrow-minded provincial. She also lost her temper and
wrote indiscreet letters, blaming the young women with
allusions and epithets that covered the entire range of the
Old Testament and the classics (Mrs. Potiphar, Messalina,
the lupanars of Rome and Pompeii) right on down to mod-
em argot. (See Appendix K, page 332.) Mohini showed the
letters to Miss L., one of the Messalinas. Unfortunately for
Madame, Messalina had received more than one hundred
letters from Mohini. Their tone indicated that it had not
been necessary, as Madame assumed, for Messalina to take
the initiative. Miss L. handed Madame’s letters— and Mo-
hini’s— over to her lawyer with instructions to sue for libel.
Madame went into a terrific pother. Could they extradite
for libel? Would Germany have to give her up? Would they
put her in jail? What could she do? In her panic she turned
back to Sinnett, dispatching the Countess to London to

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BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

beseech him to rescue her once more. After several months
a settlement was reached out of court.

By that time however, Madame was genuinely alarmed
about Babaji. This neurotic little creature, who stammered
when he was praised and sobbed noisily when scolded, had
been picked up by blind chance from India’s anonymous
millions and cast for a heavier part than he could play. In
defiance of every British Empire convention, Babaji had
been admitted overnight to the confidence and brainstorms
of a strange woman who dazzled her own kind and who
blinded and terrorized this ignorant lad. H.P.B. told a
strange story of Babaji’s having escaped from a deep jungle
where he was chela to a yogi of the Hatha Yoga school, a
form of occult practice that may lead to grave excesses.
Wherever he came from, H.P.B. recognized beneath his
repulsive appearance a nervous type easy to dominate. She
used him in several complicated masquerades, and he
adopted half a dozen aliases to cover his tracks and increase
the confusion. He once traveled the length of India in fancy
dress posing as a chela of the Master K. H. entrusted with a
secret mission and ordered to stop off en route to Tibet to
convey to Sinnett Sahib the greetings of his Master. The
Sahib had been vastly flattered and uplifted.

Inevitably Babaji must have laughed in his sleeve at the
gullibility of the proud Sahibs; his secret understanding ad-
mitted him to a status actually superior to his white lords
and masters. The free and easy manners of the western
Theosophists dislocated his standards. He was received by
the Gebhards with open arms; their big family provided a
too flattering audience for his Tamil and yoga stories. Mad-
ame had coached him to play up the Hindu jealousy theme,
his resentment of sharing the secrets of occultism with
Europeans, and his fear lest H.P.B. betray some of the
sacred mysteries confided to her alone of the Western
world. This byplay was a last straw.

While everyone was whispering about the Mohini scan-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

dal, one day in early December 1885, Babaji ran amuck,
foaming at the mouth, smashing mirrors and furniture in
epileptic seizures, and screaming accusations against Mad-
ame: she had desecrated the Masters and the mysteries by
sharing them with impure Europeans. He wrote threatening
letters to Madame, and she dispatched the Countess to
Elberfeld. After years of festering resentment, taking
H.P.B’s abuse, accepting the blame when things went
wrong, Babaji was now making a thorough job. He accused
her of every form of deceit and treachery, charged that her
phenomena were all shams and that she used trickery or else
“psychologized” her followers to make them think that they
were seeing things. In his raving, he showed an almost in-
sane hatred of H.P.B.: he would draw her life’s blood out of
her, he would kick her out and destroy the Society, he
would tear her to pieces, he would— write articles against
her in the London newspapers! 6

It went beyond mere raving. Babaji had intercepted some
damaging letters; he now charged that the Founders used
Theosophy and fraudulent Mahatma messages to extort
money from Indian rajahs, and he specifically named their
friend. Prince Harisinghi. Even the stouthearted Countess
was shaken. Her comments testify to her own good faith
and illustrate the effectiveness of Madame’s methods with
a conscientious person. She wrote Sinnett on January 28,
1886:

Though I have often shut my eyes to little irregularities, or at
least what seemed to me as such, I have reconciled it to my
conscience by thinking that as I understood so little about the
Occult laws, I must not judge by appearances, and that perhaps
someday I should understand the real meaning; but Babajee’s
charge is quite different; it is a criminal charge and can be
punished by law.

Absolving Madame of blame, the Countess tried to pre-
vent her even hearing of this last scandal, but she turned on
• Letters H.P.B., p.279.

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BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

Olcott and, in a very stiff letter, told him “that his and Mme
B’s word go for nothing in such a case— he must send me
a paper exonerating them entirely from this base charge,
signed by the Prince and several other people.” If such a
letter were not forthcoming, she would be obliged to resign,
“for I cannot remain in a society where the Founders lie
under the imputation of criminal fraud. I must see my way
clearly and honestly before me and not blush to be called a
Theosophist.” Olcott’s rajahs wrote the required exonera-
tions, and the Countess, who was good at diplomacy, paci-
fied Babaji and helped to pack him off to India.

Madame Blavatsky had been given a terrifying glimpse
of the dangers of the black arts. Her Indian interlude had
turned to ashes, and unhappy memories, and she wrote harsh
and bitter things to her old friends in India. She had not
many left; her Hindu proteges were all deserting her: Mohini
was building his own career; Damodar’s alleged trip to Tibet
was probably suicide; Babaji had become a Frankenstein.
She found consolation in her exile from India. Perhaps Eu-
ropeans were safer.

273

CHAPTER XVII

HELENA UNVEILED

( 1886 )

FOR twelve years Madame had been creating a mythical
character: H P.B., the Sinister Saint. Against the olive green
background of an abnormal childhood she had sketched her
heroine, a Christian saint with decadent overtones; deleting
the Christianity, she had retained the mystical trend, the
visions, the miracles and a concern for the redemption of
the world. In spite of fumbling, her magnetism and her
flair for publicity had carried her far.

Nemesis caught up with her in the form of the Psychical
Research report. Although forewarned of what to expect,
H.P.B. took it to heart when she saw in cold print the words
branding her an impostor, and as always she turned to Sin-
nett, who urged that her only hope was to let him write her
biography. It was her sole chance to let the public know and
appreciate the real H.P.B. Sinnett had long advised such a
book and been vetoed by Madame, who knew the impossi-
bility of accounting for twenty-five vagabond years. Now in
desperation she agreed.

Madame’s off-the-record letters to Sinnett, written early
in 1886 and published many years later (p. 42), offer
a sparkling contrast to Sinnett’s antiseptic little memoir,

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HELENA UNVEILED

which ignored such important characters as Metrovitch,
Baron Meyendorf, and the infant Youry. It was not Sin-
nett’s fault that the book was so dull. He pled for more
realistic material, but he had to take what he could get:
memories of H.P.B’s childhood and youth, prepared by her
sister and aunt under her direction and glistening with the
slick unreality of propaganda.

Although Sinnett could not get what he wanted, he re-
fused knowingly to accept fictitious documents, and he
omitted two exhibits that H.P.B. took some trouble to
prepare. Early in 1886 the Countess had been unpacking
a box of odds and ends belonging to H.P.B. that her aunt,
Madame Fadeev, had happened to forward at just this time.
Opening a sketchbook, H.P.B. ecstatically pointed to a pic-
ture of drifting boats that she had drawn when visiting
London with her father in 1851 (p. 27). She told the
Countess of meeting a tall Hindu in Hyde Park at that time;
it was her Master Morya who, in astral form, had watched
over her since childhood and had several times saved her
life. He now told her that she had been selected to found
the Theosophical Society, that she must take three years
training (reduced from seven) in Tibet, and he had warned
her of the persecution and martyrdom that lay before her.
H.P.B. read aloud the lines beneath the drawing:

Nuit memorable! Certaine nuit au clair de lime qui se
couchait a Ramsgate, 12 Aout,° 1851, lorsque je rencontrais M.
le maitre de mes reves!! [Unforgettable night! The very night
when I met M ' the Master of my dreams by the light of the
setting moon at Ramsgate on August 12,* 1851!!] 1

It was another effort to document H.P.B’s lifelong as-
sociation with the Masters. Sinnett expressed his opinion by
ignoring it, but Annie Besant and the Countess put it in
circulation. The story is now part of the Theosophists’

* [H.P.B’s footnote] August 12 is July 31 on the Russian calendar. My
birthday. Twenty years!

1 Countess Wachtmeister: Reminiscences, p. 56.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

myth, related with reverent emotion, their version of the
Annunciation when the young Helena dedicated her life
to the Mahatmas.

Another apocryphal document scrambled together for
the biography was a curious affidavit that H.P.B. labeled a
certificate of virginity. It was something quite different. It
was a statement that she had never borne a child, signed by
the misspelled name of a Wurzburg physician. Dr. Leon
Oppenheim [his name was really Oppenheimer], To make
the paper more impressive, Madame added the signatures
of her most prominent German Theosophists, President
Hubbe-Schleiden and Herr Gebhard, who testified that the
translation of the letter into English was accurate. Sinnett
failed to use this document, and its only significance, in
view of Madame’s facility with pen and ink, is to indicate
the overpowering sense of guilt that dogged her through
life. She never came to terms with her past, was never able
to view it from the hilltop of the years and say, “Too bad,
but there it is, my life, and good or bad, it made me what
I am.”

Sinnett’s labors on the biography were interrupted by
several typhoons, as when H.P.B. received a letter from the
lawyers representing Miss L., addressed to:

“mme. metrovitch otherwise

MAD. BLAVATSKY.”

With regard to her own past, Madame believed in letting
sleeping dogs he. In a panic lest this memoir revive for-
gotten memories, provide further ammunition to her
enemies, she wanted to abandon it, but was reconciled to it
by Sinnett and the Countess. A year later, with the book
almost finished, she again nearly canceled the project.
Solovyov had visited her in Wurzburg, and she, very much
attracted, had tried to lure him into a partnership. She was
looking for a successor to Olcott and Sinnett, and he had
every qualification: he was an experienced and successful

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HELENA UNVEILED

writer interested in psychic phenomena. Best of all, he was
a Russian.

At first Solovyov had seemed docile and suggestible; then
things began to go wrong. The little silver bell that made
the astral music dropped to the floor one day from inside
her dress. Solovyov stooped to pick it up and— “Helena
Petrovna changed countenance and snatched the object
from me.” Asked to hand her some papers, he happened on
a package of Chinese envelopes, the kind used by the
Mahatmas, and he chided her carelessness with a mischie-
vous twinkle. He taxed her with her impostures so cynically
that she was misled into thinking he condoned them and
asked him to collaborate with her. “If you will come to my
aid, we will astonish the world between us and we shall have
everything in our hands .” 2 But she misjudged her man.

Solovyov returned to Russia to a flirtation with sister
Vera. Under the indiscreet influence of their romance, Vera
told Solovyov the inside story of her sister’s past. This was
one of the worst blows Helena had to suffer. No more
poignant torture could have been devised than to have her
younger sister walk off with a man she wanted. Well aware
that love’s young dream was over for her, she could still be
jealous. She needed Solovyov’s skill and experience— and
he attracted her. When she learned of her sister’s affair from
her aunt, she turned on Solovyov, spreading ugly stories
about the women of his family. He warned her to leave
them alone, reminding her that he knew that her first hus-
band was still alive, “old Blavatsky whom you have prema-
turely buried.”

Worried about her bigamies and her sister’s betrayal,
H.P.B. wrote to Sinnett countermanding the memoir,
though it was nearly finished. Fearful that he might give it
to the publisher in spite of her, the Old Lady, who had
ruled her chelas so tyrannically was, for once, brought to her
knees. “Imagine the result of publishing this book if I am

2 Solovyoff: M P.I., p. 154.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

not a widow— Tableau— and you will lose your reputation
along with me. Please put the book by.”

After her death, Solovyov too wrote a book about Helena
Petrovna.® It was far from unbiased; resentment of her at-
tacks upon his family had not had time to cool. But H.P.B’s
letters to Aksakov, which he published, are unquestioned
and the book, written in an easy, informal style, furnished
a complementary picture to Hodgson’s scholarly report. It
was translated and published in England under the sponsor-
ship of the Society for Psychical Research. Henry Sidgwick,
the philosopher from Cambridge University, wrote the in-
troduction and commended Solovyov’s vivid description of
Madame, “her supple craft and reckless audacity, her intel-
lectual vigour and elastic vitality, her genuine bonhomie,
affectionateness and (on occasion) persuasive pathos.”

From a political point of view, the most serious accusa-
tion in Solovyov’s book was the corroboration by a com-
patriot that Madame was at least a potential Russian spy.
He asserted that she asked his patriotic assistance in secur-
ing for her a position “as a secret agent of the Russian gov-
ernment in India. To promote the triumph of my country
over those vile English I am capable of anything. I hate the
English government in India with its missionaries; they are
all my personal enemies, thirsting for my destruction.”

And in this book Solovyov described Madame’s desperate
gesture when she realized that he refused to collaborate. In
February 1886 she wrote the most indiscreet letter in a life
notable for lack of discretion, and she wrote it to Solovyov,
the man she had been libeling and vilifying, the man who
had jilted her for her younger sister. Abrupt, defiant, it
showed an undisciplined woman battering her head against
a stone wall. Aware that Vera had told him all, she dropped
her pretense and let herself go m an outburst pulsating with
passion. She labelled it My Confession. (See Appendix L,
page 334.)

8 A Modem Priestess of Isis.

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HELENA UNVEILED

H.P.B. began with an allegory of a wild boar, an ugly,
peaceful creature who turned upon a pack of ferocious
hounds and destroyed them until he too fell dead. She
would show herself as she really was at last, and the hounds
—Solovyov, Home, Baron Meyendorf— could no longer
frighten her with their threats. She would confess every-
thing, it would be “a saturnalia of the moral depravity of
mankind, this confession of mine, a worthy epilogue for my
stormy life. And it will be a treasure for science as well as for
scandal; and it is all me, me.” In the confession, false and
true were inextricably confused. She admitted that: she had
abandoned her husband in 1848, being still a virgin; she did
not care a straw about M[eyendorf], an egotist and hypo-
crite who lied about her to Home; she had loved one man
deeply and wandered with him in Asia, America, and Eu-
rope; there was a story about a child, but it was not hers;
she had been accused of various depravities; she had de-
liberately “tried to get people to talk about her” and to
accuse her of having lovers, hundreds of them, from her
eighteenth year on; she had fooled dozens of people and
would expose them— fools and halucinees ; she had invented
the Mahatmas, and the phenomena were mere spiritu-
alistic apparitions— but this, she added, would be a lie.
She still denied that the child was hers, still tried to ridicule
the scandalmongers with her declaration of hundreds of
lovers. She would tell a great deal more, she added “of
which no one ever dreamed.” But she could not bring her-
self to repudiate the Mahatmas; she wrote the words down
and took them back. Her lovers belonged to the past, far
away and long ago; the Mahatmas had taken their place and
she could not betray them. Instead, she tried once more to
authenticate her revelation: suddenly her eyes had been
opened to “all the horror of my moral suicide”; she had
been sent to America to expiate her faults, to attempt to
make men better and to sacrifice herself for their regenera-
tion. She prayed God to permit her to die immediately on

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

not a widow— Tableau— and you will lose your reputation
along with me. Please put the book by.”

After her death, Solovyov too wrote a book about Helena
Petrovna. 8 It was far from unbiased; resentment of her at-
tacks upon his family had not had time to cool. But H.P.B’s
letters to Aksakov, which he published, are unquestioned
and the book, written in an easy, informal style, furnished
a complementary picture to Hodgson’s scholarly report. It
was translated and published in England under the sponsor-
ship of the Society for Psychical Research. Henry Sidgwick,
the philosopher from Cambridge University, wrote the in-
troduction and commended Solovyov’s vivid description of
Madame, “her supple craft and reckless audacity, her intel-
lectual vigour and elastic vitality, her genuine bonhomie,
affectionateness and (on occasion) persuasive pathos.”

From a political point of view, the most serious accusa-
tion in Solovyov’s book was the corroboration by a com-
patriot that Madame was at least a potential Russian spy.
He asserted that she asked his patriotic assistance m secur-
ing for her a position “as a secret agent of the Russian gov-
ernment in India. To promote the triumph of my country
over those vile English I am capable of anything. I hate the
English government in India with its missionaries; they are
all my personal enemies, thirsting for my destruction.”

And in this book Solovyov described Madame’s desperate
gesture when she realized that he refused to collaborate. In
February 1886 she wrote the most indiscreet letter in a life
notable for lack of discretion, and she wrote it to Solovyov,
the man she had been libeling and vilifying, the man who
had jilted her for her younger sister. Abrupt, defiant, it
showed an undisciplined woman battering her head against
a stone wall. Aware that Vera had told him all, she dropped
her pretense and let herself go in an outburst pulsating with
passion. She labelled it My Confession. (See Appendix L,
page 334.)

8 A Modem Priestess of Isis.

278

HELENA UNVEILED

H.P.B. began with an allegory of a wild boar, an ugly,
peaceful creature who turned upon a pack of ferocious
hounds and destroyed them until he too fell dead. She
would show herself as she really was at last, and the hounds
—Solovyov, Home, Baron Meyendorf— could no longer
frighten her with their threats. She would confess every-
thing, it would be “a saturnalia of the moral depravity of
mankind, this confession of mine, a worthy epilogue for my
stormy life. And it will be a treasure for science as well as for
scandal; and it is all me, me.” In the confession, false and
true were inextricably confused. She admitted that: she had
abandoned her husband in 1848, being still a virgin; she did
not care a straw about M[eyendorf], an egotist and hypo-
crite who lied about her to Home; she had loved one man
deeply and wandered with him in Asia, America, and Eu-
rope; there was a story about a child, but it was not hers;
she had been accused of various depravities; she had de-
liberately “tried to get people to talk about her” and to
accuse her of having lovers, hundreds of them, from her
eighteenth year on; she had fooled dozens of people and
would expose them— fools and hcducinees; she had invented
the Mahatmas, and the phenomena were mere spiritu-
alistic apparitions— but this, she added, would be a lie.
She still denied that the child was hers, still tried to ridicule
the scandalmongers with her declaration of hundreds of
lovers. She would tell a great deal more, she added “of
which no one ever dreamed.” But she could not bring her-
self to repudiate the Mahatmas; she wrote the words down
and took them back. Her lovers belonged to the past, far
away and long ago; the Mahatmas had taken their place and
she could not betray them. Instead, she tried once more to
authenticate her revelation: suddenly her eyes had been
opened to “all the horror of my moral suicide”; she had
been sent to America to expiate her faults, to attempt to
make men better and to sacrifice herself for their regenera-
tion. She prayed God to permit her to die immediately on

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

publication of this confession and added in a defiant post-
script:

You may print this letter if you will, even in Russia. It is all the

same now.

It was the emotional equivalent of a suicide note.
Solovyov and her sister, Russians, her own people, had the
power to hurt her more than anyone else in the world, and
they had used it. She craved revenge, and yet how could
she hurt them? She had neither power nor money; she dared
not even slander Solovyov because of his threats. She could
humiliate them by humiliating herself. It was all that was
left. In a frenzy she ripped off the mask and dared Solovyov
to show the world what lay concealed.

2. SLIPPING
(1886)

A trivial circumstance drove H.P.B. away from Wurzburg
in May 1886. Indian friends of the professor of Sanskrit at
the University were sending him the current bazaar gossip
about Madame. She never went out, and saw few people,
but Wurzburg suddenly became intolerable. Although the
rent was paid for a month and a half in advance, they must
leave at once. The Countess, who was neglecting her own
affairs and had several times postponed an urgent trip to
Sweden, appealed to Sinnett for help. It was not safe, she
explained, to leave H.P.B. alone during these stormy times
because she could not resist writing insulting and provoca-
tive letters that only stirred up fresh disaster. Badly as things
had gone during the past winter, they might have been
worse: “She has written much that I would have given any-
thing to throw behind the fire— I have saved her again and
again from these indiscretions.”

Madame's American chela, William Q. Judge, always re-
gretted his failure to accept her invitation to come and stay
with her at this time; she even offered to pay all his expenses

280

HELENA UNVEILED

—with the Countess’s money. But Judge had disposed of his
wife and family responsibilities once, when he moved to
India in 1884; now, having been sent back to the States, he
did not propose to tear up his roots again. Similarly the
Indian chela Mohini, busy with his own career, found it im-
possible to help, to the bitter indignation of the Countess,
who wrote Sinnett with unusual asperity that if Mohini
was the stuff of which chelas were made, she hoped that no
more specimens would be sent to Europe. Sinnett would
gladly have taken a cottage at a coast resort where Mrs.
Sinnett could stay with H.P.B., but with the libel suit pend-
ing they dared not bring Madame to England. They dis-
cussed her coming secretly under an assumed name, but
abandoned the plan, fearing that H.P.B. would slip through
their fingers and rush into fresh indiscretions.

Desperately the Countess appealed to Sinnett; among all
the Theosophists in London there must be some one lady
(meaning Mrs. Sinnett perhaps?) willing to spend a few
weeks with H.P.B. in Wurzburg, free of expense, someone
they could trust not to worm her way into H.P.B’s confi-
dence and then betray her to all the world! This spring of
1886 saw Madame’s fortunes at their lowest ebb. The
courage and the financial support of the Countess pulled
her through. She was still to make an extraordinary come-
back in time to leave this world in a blaze of glory. But she
had to recruit a new set of disciples. The episodes of the
past two years had cost her all the most able and alert of her
followers. Resignations had come in thick and fast. The
London Lodge was only a shadow; Miss Francesca Arun-
dale crossed to the Continent in order to tell H.P.B. in per-
son that she and her closest friends were resigning. The
French section was moribund. After it had been split into
factions by the unfortunate episode with the medium,
Gaboriau, its process of demoralization was completed by
the stories of H P.B’s lurid youth that had come via
Solovyov and Madame de Morsier. The German Society

281

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

was also unhappy; the president, Herr Professor Hiibbe-
Schleiden, could not stand the heckling of his colleagues;
Dr. Hartmann who pretended to be a warm friend was
sniping behind H.P.B’s back. Even the Gebhards were
wondering: some of the phenomena during H.P.B’s last
visit had been very crude.

The months passed, and not one soul appeared willing to
stay with the Old Lady for a few weeks. Resolutely the
Countess stuck to her post, even sacrificing her obligation
to reach Sweden in time for her son’s twenty-first birthday
festivities. As a last resort she patched up a truce with
H.P.B’s aunt and sister Vera. They would meet her in
Ostend, find her an apartment, and get her settled. Al-
though the Countess regarded Madame with utmost rev-
erence, she was not blind to her unconscious humor. An
old friend, Miss Kislingbury, came over from London to
escort Madame and her maid Louise from Wurzburg to Ost-
end. The Countess bundled the party off early on the
morning of May 8, 1886, and bribed a guard to let H.P.B.
have a carriage to herself. Such a thing was unheard of, im-
possible, but money does wonders, and the guard unlocked
a carriage door in the center of the long train. H.P.B., who
had not been out of her room for weeks, was exhausted by
the walk down the platform, and it required the assistance
of the entire party to get her wedged through the carriage
door, followed by her nine pieces of luggage, pillows, cover-
lets, handbags, boxes, and the precious chest containing the
pages of the Secret Doctrine.

Just as they had H.P.B. comfortably settled, an Olympian
higher official, attracted by the turmoil, appeared in the
doorway and sternly forbade using this passenger carriage
as a baggage car. It was verboten : the luggage must be
checked in the compartment provided for the purpose. The
Tyrant declaimed in German, H.P.B. spluttered French,
Miss Kislingbury apologized in English. The Countess and
Louise watched anxiously from the side lines. What stern

282

HELENA UNVEILED

decision the Tyrant might have enforced will never be
known; providentially a whistle blew and the train glided
out of the shed leaving him stranded on a pinnacle of frus-
trated emotion. The Countess gazed down the V of shining
rails at the vanishing train with mingled relief and guilt. She
had a pitying sense of the customs barriers to be passed, the
complex ordeals of unloading and reloading Madame, the
peremptory officials to be soothed. Her heart ached for Miss
Kislingbury.

Breaking her journey at Cologne, H.P.B. was met by Herr
Gebhard, who carried her off to Elberfeld for a day or two.
On her arrival in their comfortable home, H.P.B. immedi-
ately slipped on the parquet floor and took to her bed for
several weeks where she was petted and waited on by all
the family. August 1886 found her in Ostend, established
in the most pretentious quarters since Adyar. She described
the grandeur with childlike satisfaction in a letter to the
Countess, a suite of three rooms for herself with satin hang-
ings in the archways and a piano in her private drawing-
room; across the hall, two rooms for the Countess. The
apartment cost more than she could afford, she admitted
coyly, but she thought the Countess would like it. Soon they
had settled back into a routine similar to that of the pre-
vious winter in Wurzburg, but with a difference. A change
was coming over H.P.B. Her recent succession of emotional
ordeals had left scars that would never entirely heal. Her
delusions increased their hold: she thought she was under
surveillance by the police for complicity in a recent million-
franc railroad robbery. She shrank from the loneliness of a
few days by herself, and her letters pursued the Countess
on hasty trips to London to wrestle with Madame’s “perse-
cutors,” such as the solicitors of Miss L. She had always
grumbled, but now H.P.B’s letters had a stricken sound: “I
have no home, no one I can rely on implicitly ... no one
able to understand me thoroughly . . I am tired of life
and the struggles of that stone of Sisyphus ... I am one

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

too many on this earth, that’s all.” In her own heart she
was suspicious of everyone, but she could not resist flattery.
After a lifetime of bending men to her will, the tired Old
Woman had become easy prey to the ambitious. She se-
cretly appointed innumerable successors, giving each a writ-
ten certificate, and there was a free-for-all after her death,
with Lady Caithness, Annie Besant, and William Q. Judge
as headliners. Henry B. Foulke, a Philadelphia medium,
flourishing an “appointment” though he had never even
met Madame and was not a member of the Society, started
a controversy hot enough to be taken up by the secular
press, and to fill long columns of papers like the Wilkes-
Barre Times.

Madame’s depression that winter in Ostend was due in
part to another capital blow. After incredible exertion, she
had managed to put together in primordial disorder a mass
of material intended for Secret Doctrine. Originally, stung
by mocking criticism, she had planned merely to rewrite
Isis Unveiled. But without the guiding hand of Dr. Wilder,
her collaborator-in-chief, it was futile to attempt such a
task. When she met Subba Row, she recognized him as the
ideal collaborator for whom she had sought the world
around. He tried to hold back, but she was overpowering.
Her plan to rewrite Isis developed into an ambitious new
book, authorized and outlined by the Mahatmas. She even
had a title page printed with Subba Row’s name in the same
type as hers and his degrees and titles importantly displayed.
When he continued reluctant, the Mahatmas commanded
the work to proceed, and Subba Row yielded.

The Psychical Research investigation was a gruelling ex-
perience for Subba Row, but Hodgson named him as one of
the few Indians who gave honest assistance. After it was all
over, Subba Row resigned from the Society, but he did not
break off all relations. With H.P.B. and her phenomena in
exile, Adyar was a quite different place. He liked the Colo-

284

HELENA UNVEILED

nel and for a time continued to assist with the Theosophist,
which offered a valued outlet for his recondite articles. But
he firmly refused to “edit” any more manuscript for
Madame.

Undeterred, H.P.B. continued her work until she had a
pile of several thousand sheets of paper. She had them
copied by a new invention, the typewriter, at a cost of- four
hundred dollars in order to have a legible copy for Subba
Row. The maid Louise brought her husband in to pack the
manuscript, wrapped as though it were jewels, corded, and
sewn in oilcloth to protect it against the dampness of the
sea trip. The Countess dispatched it from London in No-
vember 1886, insuring it for one thousand dollars and hurry-
ing to catch the first Indian mail because Madame said that
Subba Row was impatient for it to arrive and was inquiring
of the Colonel every day when to expect it.

In due time a letter from the Colonel brought the bad
news. Subba Row had been most uncomplimentary, had
said the manuscript was a hopeless jumble, and had refused
to permit his name to be associated with it. Madame took
to her bed; she was really a sick woman now, suffering from
acute conditions of heart and kidneys. Strange phenomena
attended the illness, and the Countess, convinced that the
end was near, sent to England for a consulting physician.
She had a lawyer draw up a will disposing of Madame’s
manuscript and her rings— her only property— and she sum-
moned the Gebhards, her only friends.

The Keightleys, two wealthy young Englishmen, appeared
suddenly to inquire about the possibility of bringing Mad-
ame back to London. Their visit had a tonic effect. H.P.B.
announced that on the previous night a Master had re-
quired her to choose between being permitted to die and
join the Brotherhood in Tibet or taking a new lease on
life in order to finish her book. She wanted death, but, sac-
rificing herself for mankind, she chose life, whereupon the

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Master had cured her instantly. She insisted on being
dressed and sitting up that very day. A new way of life
opened before her. She had found new collaborators, the
Keightleys, and was going back to England to make a fresh
start.

286

CHAPTER XVIII

SECRET DOCTRINE
(i88j 90)

AS SOON as Madame Blavatsky was able to travel, she was
escorted back to England. The libel suit had been settled
out of court, and she had acquired in the nick of time two
ardent new disciples, the Keightleys, Bertram and his
nephew Dr. Archibald. They were everything that appealed
to H.P.B., young men, wealthy, university graduates, fasci-
nated by occultism and Madame, indifferent to the find-
ings of Psychical Researchers regardless of their academic
prestige.

The Keightleys had cherished shining memories of
H.P.B. ever since her triumphal summer of 1884. In Ostend
she had shown them her manuscript, and they had eagerly
promised to help her put it in shape. If she would come to
England and live with them, they would secure whatever
assistance she needed. It was one of the stabs that age in-
flicts that H.P.B’s recent efforts to lure writing men to her
side had failed. She was painfully conscious that she must
have more than the clerical assistance of the Countess, and
she was glad to move to England to secure collaborators.
The Keightleys helped the Countess in the difficult proc-
ess of getting Madame moved, “a truly terrible undertak-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

ing,” as Bertram put it. H.P.B. insisted on working at her
desk until the last moment, imperiously demanding this
reference work or that in spite of their lying packed at the
bottom of large boxes of books. v

Arrived at Maycott, the Keightleys’ suburban villa on
May 3, 1887, they struggled through the reverse situation.
Madame gave them one day to get settled; at six the next
morning she leaned back in her easy chair and went to work,
expecting to find everything arranged for her convenience,
and all her books within reach. In addition to the Keight-
leys, H.P.B. found a young woman, Mabel Collins, a friend
of Bertram’s, in the villa. Mabel, a niece of Wilkie Col-
lins, was also a successful novelist. H.P.B. was not too well
pleased. She liked the undivided attention of her men, but
Mabel was a medium, and that helped.

At first Madame was homesick for Ostend, where the
household had revolved about her exclusively, but she let
the faithful Countess drift out of her life without protest.
Although Madame inspired prodigal devotion, she herself
maintained a cool detachment. She used her associates in-
stead of loving them. She put it frankly in a letter to her
sister. She was frightened and puzzled, she said, by the lav-
ish affection of her followers: “I would give the last drop of
my blood for Theosophy”— which was part of herself— “but
as for the Theosophists, I hardly love any one of them per-
sonally. I can’t love anyone personally but you of my own
blood .” 1

For a little while Madame wrote homesick letters to the
Countess, who had returned to Sweden; she was “in the
enemy’s camp”; the house was too small; “we tread unin-
terruptedly on each others’ corns”; when there were four
people in her room “we sit on each others’ heads.” And
there was no such thing as quiet; every sound was heard all
over the house. A good deal of the noise was made by
H.P.B., for her relations with Mabel Collins had deterio-
1 Path, October 1895.

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SECRET DOCTRINE

rated rapidly. One of their quarrels was witnessed by an em-
barrassed girl, Alice Cleather, who later became a leading
Blavatsky devotee. She had managed to save enough to buy
a ticket to London from her home in Eastbourne. Bertram
Keightley, knowing of her eagerness to meet Madame, ar-
ranged an appointment and met her at the station. As they
walked down the quiet residential street, Alice heard half
way down the block the clatter of angry voices. “The Old
Lady in one of her tempers,” Bertram casually explained.
After some delay, Bertram returned with apologies. The
Old Lady was in a bad humor and refused to see her. The
girl returned home sadly, savings gone and hopes dashed.
Her reaction was typical of Theosophists: the reason that
the Old Lady refused to see her was that “I was un-
worthy.” 2

Beneath the tantrums and explosions, H.P.B. was trying
to bring herself to take advantage of Mabel Collins’s talent.
Since joining the London Lodge in 1884, Mabel had writ-
ten a series of slender booklets, mystically poetic yet simply
phrased, a refreshing contrast to the verbosity of much of
the literature of occultism. The title page of Mabel’s 1885
booklet was to become a storm center of controversy, but
it read innocently enough:

LIGHT ON THE PATH

A Treatise written for the personal use of those who are ig-
norant of the Eastern Wisdom and who desire to ertter within
its influence.

Written down by M. C.

The implication of the words written down appealed to
Madame and she announced that the Masters dictated to
Mabel as well as to herself. Light on the Path is still a Theo-
sophical best-seller. Its opening lines bespeak its passive
mood:

Kill out ambition.

Kill out desire for life.

2 Alice L. Cleather: H. P. Blavatsky as I Knew Her.

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Kill out desire for comfort.

Work as those work who are ambitious. Respect life as those
do who desire it. Be happy as those are who live for happi-
ness. ...”

Mabel Collins had a gift for haunting phrases: “Before
the eyes can see, they must be incapable, of tears.” Mabel
was in every way a foil for Madame. She was tall and grace-
ful. Her auburn hair and delicate coloring gave her an
ethereal quality and made her look younger than her actual
thirty-five years. The contrast with H.P.B’s untidy shape-
lessness did not endear her to the Old Lady, but when the
first number of Madame’s new magazine appeared in Sep-
tember, it bore Mabel’s name as sub-editor on the front
page. Madame in her haste to secede from Adyar had set
up a rival magazine while she was still editor of The The-
osophist.

Eager to make Madame comfortable, in the autumn of
1887, the Keightleys moved into a more imposing residence,
more centrally located, and gave her a suite on the ground
floor. Her bedroom opened into a large study overlooking
the green solitude of a private park. Racks of reference
books flanked her desk and she was surrounded by memen-
toes of past years, Bengal bronzes, Palghat carpets, Morada-
bad platters, Sinhalese images. At once she settled down to
her accustomed routine, sitting at her desk from six to six,
a twelve hour day. After the isolation of the Continent, she
at first enjoyed the callers who crowded about her after din-
ner, but the novelty wore off and she reserved her evenings
for her game of patience surrounded by her intimates. The
public was received on Saturdays:

MADAME BLAVATSKY
AT HOME

Saturdays, 4 to 10 o’clock,

18 Lansdowne Road,

Hotting Hill, W.

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SECRET DOCTRINE

A day or two after her arrival, H.P.B. had turned over tc
the Keightleys a pile of manuscript three feet high, over six
thousand pages, asking them to “read, punctuate, correct
the English, alter and generally treat it as if it were your
own." The flattered Keightleys’ first step was to assemble
a little staff of experts. Ed Fawcett, a young scientist, not
only supplied appropriate quotations in his field, but wrote
many pages for the scientific sections. Richard Harte, Amer-
ican journalist, old friend of Olcott’s, produced a commen-
tary on the stanzas from the Book of Dzyan that were the
inspiration of the entire work: they were supposed to be
translations from “the oldest book in the world,” written in
Senzar, an extinct sacred language. The staff went to work,
separating the stanzas into slokas (verses), pasting each sloka
at the head of a sheet of paper, and adding any relevant
questions or comments from the manuscript or out of their
own heads. Harte was especially helpful in devising illumi-
nating questions about the stanzas.

Ploughing down through three feet of manuscript was a
formidable task. When it was done, the Keightleys faced
Madame unhappily. They dared not tell her that it was an
incoherent jumble, “another Isis Unveiled only worse so
far as absence of plan and consecutiveness were con-
cerned.” 3 They did tell her that she would have to reorgan-
ize it on some definite plan. H.P.B. swore, grumbled that
she was sick of the thing, and washed her hands of it,
“handed over the manuscript to us and told us to go to
hell and get on with it.” In the end the staff worked out a
simple and obvious outline. They divided the work into
four volumes, each to consist of three parts: the stanzas of
Dzyan and commentaries, symbolism, and science.

For sequence, they advised beginning with the evolution
of the cosmos in Volume I, passing on to the evolution of
man in II, presenting the historical background and lives of
the great occultists in III, and practical occultism in IV.

8 Bertram Keightley: Reminiscences of H.P.B.

291

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

With a sigh of relief H.P.B. accepted their entire plan, and
the staff undertook to distribute the six thousand pages
under the headings indicated, much as one might sort jum-
bled heaps of playing cards.

Nobody remembered to wonder about the outline dic-
tated by the Master Koot Hoomi during the final days at
Adyar. That plan had proved so inadequate that these two
average young men, the Keightleys, were obliged to revamp
it completely, which seems hard on Koot Hoomi as a plan-
ner. The fact that Secret Doctrine was produced in this
halting, disjointed fashion was kept fairly quiet by the oaths
of secrecy imposed on her assistants, and Madame contin-
ued to insist that she was a mere amanuensis, taking down
her books at supernatural dictation. She even had the hier-
archy issue formal certificates to assure her followers that
Secret Doctrine was “the triple production” of two of the
Masters and Upasika.

For anyone who has ever tried to write a simple exposi-
tion based on a logical outline, this story of the Secret Doc-
trine on the assembly line is indeed revealing. It explains
why Madame’s books make such difficult reading, and how
they were really written. Cultivating Oriental scholars, Kab-
balists, Rosicrucians, owners of libraries on occultism, she
picked their brains and their shelves, took copious notes,
threw the material together, and depended upon her be-
mused admirers to reduce the confusion to some sort of
order. In view of the circumstances, her two chief works,
incoherent and rambling though' they may be, are indeed
remarkable productions.

Secret Doctrine has stood the test of time better than the
earlier book and is the source of nearly all the numerous
pamphlet reprints from Madame’s works. Isis Unveiled
was, in the main, an accumulation of the folklore of occult-
ism. Secret Doctrine undertook the sterner task of provid-
ing an encyclopedic textbook of Theosophy. The title re-
ferred to Madame’s quest of many years, the secret doctrine

292

SECRET DOCTRINE

of the Ancient Wisdom. The book did not undertake to
present the entire teaching, only fragments; it would be
centuries before much more was released. The keys to the
Zodiacal Mysteries “must be turned seven times before the
whole system is divulged.”

The book’s subtitle, The Synthesis of Science, Religion,
and Philosophy, suggests the ambitious size of the canvas.
Volume one described the universe in terms of millions of
years and trillions of miles; “The accumulated Wisdom of
the Ages ... its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous
and elaborate system even in the exotericism of the Puranas
(Hindu classics).” Volume two dealt with Man from the
evolution of life on this planet several hundred million years
ago down to the year 1888, chronicling his progress in
Rounds, Races, and sub-Races. The fourth Race flourished
850,000 years ago on the fabled island of Atlantis. Anglo-
Saxons belong to the fifth sub-race of the seven that make
up this Root Race. California has been honored as the
cradle of the next, the sixth sub-Race that is beginning to
emerge under the influence of the beneficent California
sunshine. The manuscript of Volume three was typed by
the Keightleys, and Volume four was nearly finished, but
both disappeared after Madame’s death. Annie Besant has
been accused of suppressing them as part of her effort to
crowd Madame Blavatsky out of the picture. A posthumous
volume of Madame’s writings, edited and published by Mrs.
Besant, is rejected by the orthodox Blavatskian as having
been impiously altered and edited!

Publication of Secret Doctrine was postponed several
times. Now that H.P.B. had her own publishing house, she
could indulge her passion for revising, and the Keightleys
paid the printer fifteen hundred dollars for corrections.
When the two volumes appeared, Theosophists bowed low
before a new revelation. George Russell, famous Irish mys-
tic and poet, better known as A. E., considered Secret Doc-
trine the most exciting and stimulating book written in the

293

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

last hundred years, and credited H.P.B. with inspiring all
that was best in his own writings. Writers in the secular
press, on the other hand, took it as they had taken Isis Unr
veiled, rather humorously. Far from amusing, it infuriated
one old scholar. William Emmette Coleman of San Fran-
cisco devoted several years to exposing the falsity of Mad-
ame’s pretensions, and took the offensive in a picturesque
literary duel. Photographs of Mr. Coleman show a subject
for the caricaturist, gaunt face and high forehead set on a
thin neck, with square steel spectacles over his deepset eyes.
An authority on palaeography, he was a member of the Pali
Text Society, the Royal Asiatic Society, and other learned
organizations. Coleman lacked a sense of humor, and it
maddened him to observe H.P.B’s irreverent trifling with
subjects that were his major interest in life. “Some have
thought me harsh about this woman, but the truth is often
harsh ... I have never said aught concerning her but what
I was firmly convinced was the truth. I try to be scrupu-
lously conscientious.” H.P.B. replied to his charges with
personal abuse of Coleman and “his lying billingsgate.”

After pulling Secret Doctrine to pieces under a micro-
scope, Coleman repeated the charges of plagiarism and
fraud made against Isis. There was no reference in all litera-
ture to this alleged “oldest book in the world.” The lan-
guage Senzar was unknown to the most learned philolo-
gists. The so-called “Stanzas of Dzyan” were compiled by
Madame from various nineteenth-century reference books,
and for the work as a whole she had depended largely on
two books, Wilson’s Vishnu Purana and Winchell’s World
Life, mixed up with smatterings of Paracelsus, Eliphas Levi,
Buddha, Brahmanism, Eugenius Philalethes, and the cabala.
Coleman was especially annoyed by H.P.B’s habit of
blithely twisting authorities around to suit her purpose and
he solemnly counted more than six hundred false state-
ments relating to Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Assyriol-
ogy, Egyptology, and Christianity. Patiently Coleman ex-

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SECRET DOCTRINE

posed gross ignorance not only of Eastern philosophy but
of the spelling of such well known names as the Bhagavad-
Gita, which Madame referred to several times as the Ba-
gaved Gitta; and he commented that only an ignoramus
could omit the h which follows b in Sanskrit. He devoted a
damaging section to conflicts between Isis and Secret Doc-
trine on such basic theories as reincarnation and the sep-
tenary constitution of man. While H.P.B. might com-
mendably grow in understanding and change her opinions
between the two books, such afterthoughts are not per-
mitted to Mahatmas revealing Ultimate Truth. Coleman
also examined the Mahatma letters and discovered that, as
in Madame’s other works, they discreetly limited their quo-
tations from Eastern literature to passages available in trans-
lation; most of the Buddhist scripture, for instance, came
from Beal’s Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chi-
nese. (See Appendix M, page 337.)

This devastating criticism was supported by other schol-
ars. Horace Howard Furness, Regent of the University of
Pennsylvania wrote to express his gratitude for the “mas-
terly review of the Blavatsky,” congratulating Coleman on
the dignified style in which he had demolished “flimsy
pasteboard chimeras which demand as much skill to smash
as if they were real.” Epes Sargent of Boston, with whom
Madame had once fallen in love, wrote that her remarks on
reincarnation were a jumble of contradictory statements
and “read like the ravings of a lunatic.”

Scholars might pour out vials of scorn upon H.P.B., but
they could not annihilate her. It was a left-handed compli-
ment when the greatest among them dignified her preten-
sions with a thoughtful reply. Professor Max Muller of Ox-
ford University, supreme among Orientalists for his life
work, a forty-eight-volume translation of the Sacred Books
of the East, found in her material “endless blunders,” de-
nied the existence of her Mahatmas in numerous books and
articles, and even delivered a course of lectures on The-

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

osophy. In an article in The Nineteenth Century and After,
Professor Muller showed his capacity for human under-
standing as well as scholarship. He had read Vera’s biogra-
phy of her sister in La Nouvelle Revue, and he invited Ol-
cott to his home for luncheon and a confidential interview.
He concluded that Madame Blavatsky had been a wild, ex-
citable girl with an unfortunate weakness for vulgar exhi-
bitions of magic, and he thought she had probably been
victimized by some of the Pundits she had consulted. Ol-
cott told him that she was convinced that every religion
must have its miracles— they were the manure that made it
grow— and this conviction had gradually led her into the
most barefaced tricks. She had begun her career, Professor
Muller continued, “not without a premature acquaintance
with the darker side of life, not without a weakness for no-
toriety. After a time she ceased to be truthful either to her-
self or to others.” In spite of her frailties, Muller recognized
something real amid the rhinestones, and he credited her
with catching a glimpse, here and there “of those wonderful
philosophical intuitions which are treasured up in the sacred
books of the East.” 4

2. THE E. S. DICTATORSHIP

(1887)

The financial backing of the Keightleys made Madame in-
dependent of Olcott, and she hastened to implement her
freedom. Within a month of her return to England she
wrote him a letter that indicated her resilience, how fast
she could swing from the utter slump of the last weeks in
Wurzburg back to her managing, contriving self. Her let-
ter must have left Olcott feeling dazed; one-two-three she
gave him her budget of news:

Item 1. She was forming her own Blavatsky Lodge of
Theosophists in London; Sinnett had been so stuffy that

4 Nineteenth Century , May 1893.

296

SECRET DOCTRINE

he was to be left out in the cold, and she had already cap-
tured fourteen of his best Theosophists. She significantly
omitted the usual formalities in regard to the new Lodge’s
relation to Headquarters.

Item 2. She was founding her own magazine and publish-
ing house. Some friends were putting up $7,500 for the
publishing company, which would print the magazine and
also her book, emancipating her from the tyranny of pub-
lishers with their deadlines and their annoying bills for cor-
rections.

Item 3. She was establishing a secret organization within
her Lodge to be known as the Esoteric Section— the E. S.
Only picked members would be admitted and they must
take a seven-fold pledge which would include vows of: Ab-
solute Obedience, “and in particular to obey without cavil
or delay the orders of the Head of the E. S. in all that con-
cerns my relation with the Theosophical Movement”; Se-
crecy, “never to listen without protest to any evil thing
spoken of a brother theosophist and to abstain from con-
demning others.”

Every probationer must accept and practice the ascetic
discipline: no meat, no alcohol, etc., and must spend sev-
eral hours every day in meditation, gazing fixedly at a photo-
graph of the portrait of the Master and trying to imagine
that He was actually standing in the room. As the repre-
sentative of the Master who was the real Head of the Sec-
tion, H.P.B. would give individual instruction to the proba-
tioners and alone would pass on admission of candidates,
promotions, and rewards. Her decisions would be final and
must be accepted without argument or criticism as the
judgment of “those who know.”

H.P.B. had long cherished ambitions to establish herself
with dictatorial powers, and she was coming into the open
after years of undercover preparation. Most of her Indian
chelas were easy victims of such a policy, and before leaving
India she had begun indoctrinating a few key Europeans.

297

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

As far back as the summer of 1884, the Masters had been
preaching Absolute Obedience in England. No force, wrote
Koot Hoomi, could stand up against Theosophy “if every
Fellow [of the T. S.] took for his motto the wise words of
a young boy, 'I am a Theosophist before I am an English-
man/ ” 5

Olcott was alarmed by H.P.B's letter; he feared that she
would wreck the Society. He pointed out that she was un-
dermining her international organization and setting up a
competitor to her own official magazine, The Theosophist.
He also distrusted and opposed the policy underlying the
E. S. and reminded her of a similar effort in India four years
earlier that had ended disastrously. For two successive years
Olcott made the long trip from Adyar to England trying
to stay H.P.B’s hand. Several of the older members joined
in his protests. Sinnett refused to accept membership in the
E. S. even though H.P.B. offered him personal exemption
from the pledges to which he objected. Olcott and Sinnett,
for once on the same side, realized that H.P.B. had been
driven underground by the Society for Psychical Research.
The E. S. was to be her device for continuing her marvels,
protected as she trustingly believed by new strike-me-dead
vows. H.P.B’s impulsive nature, her love of mystification,
and her willingness to let the ends justify use of the most un-
scrupulous means, made her old friends fear that she could
not be trusted with such arbitrary power. Both men saw
danger signals ahead, and they were right. Within a year
it was necessary to clean house, expel several members of
the select E. S., and supplement it with something still
more secret, the I. G. (Inner Group) . The E. S. and its suc-
cessors have been storm centers of controversy from that
day to this.

The succeeding split between the Founders high-lighted
the distinction between two schools of Theosophical
thought. Colonel Olcott represented the Exoteric, which

8 Letters M.W., 1 , 21 .

298

SECRET DOCTRINE

may be defined not only as "intelligible to outsiders,” but
also as "commonplace.” The Colonel was at heart a genial,
provincial Christian. His years of intimacy with the pagan
H.P.B. and of preaching Buddhism failed to alter his habit
of heading notes in his diary "Easter Sunday” or “Whit-
sunday.” He wanted the Society to preach the Golden Rule,
with poetic thoughts about Eternity and the Mahatmas for
atmosphere, and with a dash of his own mesmeric healing
as the limit of its efforts to tap the supernatural. To H.P.B.
this was old stuff, boring and bourgeois. She was exclusively
interested in an Esoteric school, limited to initiates, and all
bound round with secrecy. Her Theosophy required access
to the supernatural; it demanded tolerance for beliefs and
practises commonly exploited by charlatans for a livelihood.
This esoteric principle, a doctrine for the select few, who
therefore were not bound by ordinary conventions, was the
heart of H.P.B’s teaching. The flattery of its appeal enabled
her to survive all the exposures and ridicule and attacks
upon her personal life.

After more than a year of wrangling, during which they
said very blunt things about each other, the Founders
patched up their controversy. Inevitably, Olcott gave in and
meekly issued an Order in Council dated October 9, 1888,
officially sanctioning the E. S. with Madame Blavatsky at
its head. Olcott was still at her service, spending several
months in Paris arbitrating disputes and trying to resusci-
tate the French section. The German section had disinte-
grated after the resignation of Dr. Hiibbe-Schleiden. Gen-
eral Doubleday had taken no interest in the American
section beyond permitting H.P.B. to use his name as Presi-
dent. The international organization was almost as tenuous
as its Mahatmas.

Suddenly a challenging figure loomed upon the American
scene, Dr. Elliott Coues of Washington, D. C., a well-known
scientist, an ornithologist best known for his Key to North
American Birds and as scientific consultant on the staff of

299

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

the Century Dictionary. A man of distinguished presence,
tall, genial, and vivacious, he was also an aggressive and un-
forgiving antagonist. He had known the Founders in the
old Lamasery days and had been a guest at the Gebhards
that famous summer of ’84 when he had watched Madame
closely. A man of his talent was a godsend for the moribund
American branch, and he was appointed Chairman of the
Board of Control. He soon aspired to take the presidency
away from the inventor of baseball, and at a convention in
Chicago in 1888 made himself the sensation of the hour by
receiving a letter from a Mahatma. H.P.B. was very cross
about this; it was against the rules to receive such letters
except through her. But when she remonstrated. Dr. Coues
replied with a verve and style startlingly like her own. Sign-
ing himself Darius Hystaspes II, he jeered at “the psycholo-
gized baby Olcott” and “the meek Hibernian Judge,” and
even dared to patronize “the greatest woman of the age,”
whom he said he admired “as only a man of genius can.” It
was lese-majeste. Madame had brought Hume to book for
much less. It is a coincidence that he too was an authority
on birds! When she tried to put Dr. Coues in his place, he
would not stay put, and in the process she enraged him.

Looking for the best spot to attack H.P.B., the Doctor
struck up a correspondence with Mabel Collins, whom he
had never met. She had lasted seventeen months as sub-
editor, had then been refused admission to the E. S., and
had disappeared abruptly from the magazine, from Mad-
ame’s favor, and from the Keightley residence. Dr. Coues
published on May 11, 1889 Mabel’s confession that Mad-
ame's Mahatmas had nothing to do with her “writing
down” Light on the Path and other inspirational brochures.
“Written down by M. C.” was just an expression; she was
the author of the book and she had written it down. She
had permitted the interpretation that her work was dic-
tated by the Master Koot Hoomi only because of very ur-
gent appeals. “H.P.B. begged and implored me.” Madame’s

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SECRET DOCTRINE

reply was to cancel the charter of the Washington branch
and to expel the Doctor from the Theosophical Society.

The next play was by Dr. Coues. He inspired a sensa-
tional attack on Madame by the New York Sun; a wither-
ing editorial in June 1890, was followed by a full-page,
seven-column expose-interview with Dr. Coues under a
streamer headline:

THE TARTAR TERMAGANT TAMED BY SMITHSONIAN
SCIENTIST

Pushing his picturesque vocabulary to its utmost, Dr. Coues
let himself go. 6 He had first known the Theosophists in
1874 in New York, and had watched “their three card
monte in which Blavatsky dealt, Olcott steered and Judge
played the capper.” He described Madame as “fat, gross, of
abominable habit and intolerable tempers, swearing like a
pirate and smoking like a chimney.” The Doctor reviewed
all the Theosophical scandals, the Coulomb letters, the Kid-
dle plagiarism, and Baron de Palm’s manuscript, and he
elaborated the charge that Madame had come to this coun-
try as a Russian spy and had gone to India in the same ca-
pacity.

Reaching back into the past. Dr. Coues brought out all
the dirty linen of Madame’s youth. That was when he
stubbed his toe. In addition to sharing the fortunes of a
man named Metrovitch, he charged, she had been a mem-
ber of the Paris demi-monde during the years 1857-8, and
had lived by her wits throughout the entire twenty-five years
of her wanderings. He also accused her of a liaison with
Prince Emile de Wittgenstein and bearing him a deformed
son who died in Kiev in 1861. Here the Doctor slipped up.
When H.P.B. first arrived in this country, she used to dazzle
the natives with glimpses of crested letters from Prince
Wittgenstein and the Baron Meyendorf. She took them
with her to the Eddy farm to impress the Colonel and down

6 New York Sun, July 20, 1890.

301

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

to the Graphic office when she went to be interviewed. The
Doctor picked the wrong man, naming the Prince, instead
of Baron Meyendorf.

For a score of years the press of Europe and Asia had
been familiar with, and had voluntarily suppressed, the de-
tails of H.P.B’s early career. In spite of her vulnerability, she
had lashed out in all directions until she felt herself im-
mune. When the blow fell, it came from the New World.
It is surprising that the New York Sun (Dana was still alive)
considered this abusive attack worth a full page. Madame
Blavatsky had left the country eleven years earlier; she had
been a person of no great importance while here; her Amer-
ican following was negligible. The news value of the story
attached not to H.P.B., but to the fact that a man of Dr.
Coues’s standing was willing to sponsor such spicy name-
calling. There was also an element of our yokel suscepti-
bility to scandals about princes and barons.

The legal staff of the Sun, which was then headed by
Elihu Root, seems to have slipped up in passing the story
without checking with its European office the names of the
principals. This routine precaution would have caught the
flagrant error, the name of Prince Wittgenstein. Madame
Blavatsky took full advantage of the lapse. Ignoring numer-
ous disagreeable charges that could not be answered, she
issued her reply: she dismissed the demi-monde accusation
as “so ridiculous as to arouse laughter,” and concentrated
on the false and foul calumny against Prince Wittgenstein,
“an old friend of my family whom I saw for the last time
when I was 18 years old ... He was a cousin of the late
Empress of Russia, and little thought that upon his grave
would be thrown the filth of a modern New York news-
paper She instructed William Judge to file suit for

libel against the Sun.

Delays and postponements carried the case along until
after H.P.B’s death, which, according to the law of New

7 Path, September 1890.

302

SECRET DOCTRINE

York State, automatically terminated the suit. However,
four months later, the Sun voluntarily apologized for the
Coues interview and, to make amends, printed a long trib-
ute to Madame from the pen of William Judge. The Sim
stated that it had been misled in admitting the Coues inter-
view to its pages, and said that the Doctor's charges “appeal
to have been without solid foundation.”

It was the nearest to a vindication that Madame ever at-
tained, and it came after she was dead.

3. TWILIGHT OF THE MAHATMAS

(1889)

For any cause needing an inspired propagandist— and what
cause doesn’t?— Annie Besant was a dream come true. She
was a radiant woman of forty-two, a gifted speaker, experi-
enced pamphleteer and editor, heroine of numerous bizarre
adventures. In a day when destitute ladies sponged on male
relatives, however remote, rather than soil their fingers as
wage-earners, Annie Besant was almost unique. After a brief
and stormy marriage, she had abandoned her Lincolnshire
vicar and her family background of titled and professional
tradition in 1873, the summer that H.P.B. landed in New
York. Supplementing her superficial education with night
courses at the University of London, Mrs. Besant took firsts
in seven sciences. For fifteen years she had supported herself
very comfortably, running the gamut of radical causes from
atheism and family limitation to Bernard Shaw’s Fabian
Socialism. She had won fame as an orator and had a devoted
personal following. In spite of her successes she faced an
impasse.

In getting rid of her vicar husband, Mrs. Besant had ex-
iled herself from the Church, and she had searched ever
since for a substitute, making the rounds of smart and
shabby mediums, clairvoyants, and hypnotists. She was,
she said, “studying the obscurer sides of consciousness,

303

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

dreams, hallucinations, illusions, insanity. . . . Into the dark-
ness shot a ray of light, A. P. Sinnett’s Occult World with
its wonderfully suggestive letters expounding, not the super-
natural, but a nature under law, wider than I had dared to
conceive.” 8 The mystery of Theosophy thrilled her, the im-
plication of something big and powerful watching her from
around the comer. It made the world less lonely.

Opportunely in the spring of 1889, William T. Stead
asked Mrs. Besant to review the two volumes of Secret
Doctrine: “Can you review these?” he asked. “My young
men all fight shy of them, but you are quite mad enough on
these subjects to make something of them.”

It was heavy going but she liked the challenge. “I am im-
mersed in Madame Blavatsky,” she wrote Stead. “If I perish
in the attempt to review her, you must write on my tomb,
‘She has gone to investigate the Secret Doctrine at first
hand.’ ” Instead of perishing, she secured an appointment
to call on Madame. She was shown into the study overlook-
ing a green park. H.P.B. sat enthroned in a great armchair,
and for a long electric moment these two dynamic women
measured one another. Annie Besant looked eagerly, hun-
grily, into those mysterious azure eyes that had hypnotized
so many yearning spirits.

When H.P.B. spoke, her harsh voice was almost tender:
“My dear Mrs. Besant, I have so long wished to see you,”
and stretching out her hand, she held Annie’s in a firm
clasp. Watching her prospect with quiet confidence, H.P.B.
led the conversation down innocuous bypaths. She talked
brilliantly of her travels, adventures in far countries, fa-
mous people, “her eyes veiled, her exquisitely molded fin-
gers rolling cigarettes incessantly.” There was no talk of oc-
cultism, no touch of mystery. Madame was a woman of
the world at ease in her drawing room. At the moment of
farewell, for an instant, H.P.B. drew back the veil. Looking
deep into her caller’s eyes she said, with a throb in her voice:

* Annie Besant: An Autobiography, p. 339.

304

Theosoplusts who knew H.P.B. in her later years

Annie Besant, who made a whirlwind surrender to Theosophy
and became its crown princess

SECRET DOCTRINE

“Oh my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among
us!”

The younger woman struggled against an embarrassing
compulsion to bend down and kiss this strange, fascinating
creature whom she had barely met. Surprised by her own
susceptibility, she controlled herself and made her conven-
tional adieux; H.P.B., observing the byplay, was well satis-
fied. Later, their swift intimacy established, they were
talking over that first meeting and H.P.B. laughed reminis-
cently. “Child,” she said, “your pride is terrible; you are
as proud as Lucifer himself.”

It cost Annie Besant a severe wrench to announce her
surrender to Theosophy, she who had so confidently repu-
diated religion for materialism as she barnstormed up and
down England in partnership with the famous atheist,
Charles Bradlaugh. Now a strange Russian woman had
turned her world upside down. She returned to Lansdowne
Road to ask Madame to take her as a pupil, but Madame
put her off.

“Have you read the report about me of the S. P. R?”
Madame asked her.

“No, I never heard of it as far as I know.”

“Go and read it,” said H.P.B. sternly, “and if, after read-
ing it, you come back— well— ” And she deftly changed the
subject.

The leader of an occultist cult must be a good deal more
than a fascinating conversationalist. Even personal magnet-
ism scarcely explains it. Under the spell of H.P.B’s magic,
Mrs. Besant with her alert mind and scientific training
could read the Psychical Research Report and dismiss it
indignantly as “a vile attack on a noble woman.” Richard
Hodgson's application of scientific methods, his painstaking
investigation and handling of evidence went for nothing:

Was the writer of the Secret Doctrine this miserable impostor,

this accomplice of tricksters, this foul and loathsome deceiver,

this conjurer with trap-doors and sliding panels? I laughed aloud

3°5

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

at the absurdity and flung the Report aside with die righteous

scorn of an honest nature that knew its own kin when it met

them and shrank from the foulness and baseness of a lie.

Annie Besant has left an intimate record of the process
by which a woman with a good mind and natural integrity
may surrender in all good faith to the suggestion of a na-
ture stronger than her own. It was partly her own inner tur-
moil, her sense of frustration and loneliness, that made her
so susceptible. In almost everyone a pitiful, small-child in-
stinct survives to lean on someone bigger and wiser than he.
Unconsciously, insidiously, Annie Besant was drawn into
compromises, into tolerance of practices that she would
once have repudiated with indignation.

Madame Blavatsky did not have long to wait for the lat-
est neophyte. On an afternoon in early May, Annie Besant
returned; deeply moved, she stood beside Madame’s chair,
then bent down and kissed her.

“You have joined the Society?” asked H.P.B.

“Yes.”

“You have read the Report?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Annie Besant knelt beside the old magician and said:
“My answer is, will you accept me as your pupil and give
me the honour of proclaiming you my teacher in the face
of the world?”

H.P.B’s inscrutable face softened, and there was an un-
wonted gleam of tears in her eyes as, with pontifical dignity,
she placed her hand upon the head bent low before her
and said: “You are a noble woman. May Master bless
you.”

The relationship progressed swiftly. Mrs. Besant had to
attend a trade union congress in Paris in July, and the Old
Lady, for once accommodating herself to the convenience
of a chela, went along. Evading the austerities of the con-
gress, H.P.B. stayed in Fontainebleau with a wealthy Amer-

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SECRET DOCTRINE

ican Theosophist, Mrs. Ida Candler, and there Annie pres-
ently joined her.

Even the elderly are permitted to experience a certain
rejuvenescence from new and stimulating friendships, a tan-
talizing echo of the transports of youth. While Annie was
sitting through the long days of speechmaking at the con-
gress, H.P.B. worked off her new access of energy with a
physical zest she had not shown for many years. She evi-
denced a sudden interest in sightseeing, and wrote her aunt
letters that read like a Baedeker, boasting that she had vis-
ited forty-five of the fifty-eight rooms of the Palace of Fon-
tainebleau on her own two legs.

At Fontainebleau Annie Besant beheld her first vision.
She and Madame had established a most agreeable rapport
as chela and guru. H.P.B. enjoyed a fresh audience for her
repertory of taps, bells, and messages, and was pleased by
her own success with this uncommonly intelligent woman.
Annie surrendered eagerly to the atmosphere of mystery,
but reveled even more in throwing off the bleak materialism
of recent years and returning not to the remote Trinity she
had abandoned with her husband, but to a crowding hier-
archy of Masters, lurking in the corners of every room, likely
to materialize at any instant. The two women slept in ad-
joining rooms. One night Annie woke with a start to find
the room pulsing as with the flashing of an electric storm;
suddenly the radiant, astral figure of her Master appeared,
stood for an instant beside her bed, and vanished. Annie
Besant had shown herself an apt pupil, and had matricu-
lated in her guru’s School of Esoterics with exemplary
speed. From this time on she continued not only to see her
Master at discreet intervals, but to hear his voice. She was
even permitted to touch his hand.

These were comparatively serene days for H.P.B., an In-
dian summer of golden sunshine and magical twilights after
prolonged storms. For the first time in the long years of her
rebellious, reckless life, she could lean back and relax. Her

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

financial worries were over. The wealth of the Keightleys
had been supplemented by the devotion of this accom-
plished woman. H.P.B. had reached the point where even
jealousy was fading away; instead of resenting Annie’s mas-
terful ways she gratefully accepted her competence. It was
especially pleasant to H.P.B. that, in spite of all the blun-
ders, here at the end she had again been taken up by the
smart world. The society journalists put her down on their
beat and wrote amusing skits about The Female Pope of
Theosophy. They gave her an enthusiastic sendoff on the
opening of her new residence and headquarters on July 25,
1890.

For Annie Besant had picked up her guru and her so-
ciety and carried them both off bodily to her own spacious
home, which she had formally deeded to the Theosophists.
The new residence on Avenue Road, even more imposing
than the Keightleys’ establishment, was set in ample
grounds with trees, shrubbery, and flowers, surrounded by
a high brick wall. The wall was symbolical. Members of the
Society and old friends from all over the world with memo-
ries of Madame’s bohemian hospitality in New York and
India found themselves no longer welcome. Only the inner
coterie had entree. Madame felt no regrets. She was, she
said, glad to escape from “the mystical vampires.”

In truth she was failing rapidly; her fighting days were
over. She was entering her sixtieth year, a milestone that
tests the courage of many a stout heart. She had lived hard
those threescore years, packing into each day a shattering
intensity of joy and rage, ambition and despair. For the last
half of her life she had defied every rule of hygiene, taking
no exercise, eating too much rich and fattening food, smok-
ing too much, raging too much, until at sixty she was a phys-
ical wreck, a repulsive mountain of flesh. But she still re-
tained her magnificent eyes, her imperious will, her robust
sense of humor, her richness of personality. Impulsively she
bestowed upon Mrs. Besant in swift succession control of the

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SECRET DOCTRINE

magazine and her correspondence, and general administra-
tive responsibility. Fortunately for H.P.B. she never knew,
unless she was able to look down from some Theosophical
Valhalla, what this precocious new chela did with her pre-
cious T. S. She did not live long enough to see Annie— her-
self betrayed by the vagaries of occultism— lead the Society
down strange, perverted byways from which Madame would
have recoiled in horror. Instead, and if the Mahatmas were
responsible, they were good to her in this: she knew only
the ineffable relief for a tired old woman of letting her bur-
dens slide through her fingers into the outstretched hands
of her devoted chela.

On the whole, Madame’s program was making satisfac-
tory progress. After fifteen years of using Olcott as the fig-
urehead of the Society, she had, in August 1890, assumed
the title of President of the European Section; Olcott had
been forced to grant complete autonomy to both the Euro-
pean and American sections, leaving Adyar little more than
memories of the past until after his death, when Mrs. Bes-
ant restored its former glory. The bifurcations of the Inner
oh-so-secret societies had begun, spreading out quietly like
mushrooms in a cellar.

Madame’s magazine, Lucifer, was forging ahead, and she
had recently published a brochure that was to be the most
widely read and the most beloved of all her writings. A col-
lection of aphorisms translated, like the “Stanzas of Dzy-
an” from the mysterious Senzar language, it was called
The Voice of the Silence. In the last few years a single
American section of the Theosophical movement, the
United Lodge of Theosophists, has sold 30,000 copies of
this little book.

Annie Besant, taking over responsibility from Madame,
laid out ambitious plans for research with the assistance of
Madame’s brilliant young secretary, G. R. S. Mead, a Cam-
bridge man, a scholar, and a mystic of genuine integrity.
Mrs. Besant also made elaborate alterations in her house

309

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

for the Society's use, and provided for the supersecret I. G.
a supersecret Inner Room having no windows and with a
ceiling of a special shade of blue selected by H.P.B. for its
mystical influence. Only the very elect even knew of the
room’s existence; what happened there is still a secret. One
after another, most of the original Inner Group resigned,
alienated and disillusioned; Mead held on until 1909. But
they went to their graves refusing to expose the gravest
abuses, feeling that nothing could release them from their
oaths of secrecy.

Behind the walls of Annie’s castle, behind the tenderly
protective shield of Annie herself, H.P.B. nestled back for
her last half year of life as sheltered as an incubator baby.
A photograph shows her in a curious outsize perambulator,
surrounded by the shrubbery of Annie’s garden, attended
by young men chelas, her secretary, Mr. Mead, on one side,
and on the other an absentminded-looking mystic, James
Pryse, who is clutching her tobacco box. Madame sits en-
throned, swathed in shawls, the gleaming covers of the pad-
ded go-cart closed over her lap like the lid of a coffin. The
picture suggests the hothouse atmosphere into which she
had snuggled.

To the very end, H.P.B. maintained a trickle of articles
for the magazine, her subjects ever more remote and ab-
struse. In the March Lucifer she interpreted Ormzud and
Ahriman, a Persian allegory based on a Zoroastrian theme,
with a title in her own inimitable style, The Devils Own.
Annie Besant’s first project was a publicity campaign in
defense of her new guru. She was sure that the story had
never been properly presented to the public; the former
assistants must have been easily frightened. Annie briefed
the case for Madame in a series of terse propositions. The
first sentence summarized the situation with admirable
brevity: “Either she is a messenger from the Masters or
else she is a fraud.”

310

CHAPTER XIX

INTO THE SILENCE

( 1891)

ALL her life Madame had been fascinated by death. It
shadowed her childhood fantasies; her aunt’s memoir-
dictated by H.P.B.— charged that the child Helena had “an
unaccountable attraction to and at the same time fear of
the dead.”

Most of H.P.B’s rare attempts at fiction were horror sto-
ries surcharged with torture and killing. The Master K. H.
even attempted an intimate description of the reality be-
hind the mystery of death:

At the last moment, the whole life is reflected in our memory
and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and comers, picture
after picture, one event after another. . . . Even a madman or
one in a fit of delirium tremens will have his instant of perfect
lucidity . . . the brain thinks and the EGO lives in these few
brief seconds, his whole life over again. . . . Speak in whispers,
ye who assist at a death-bed and find yourselves in the solemn
presence of Death. Especially have ye to keep quiet just after
Death has laid her clammy hand upon the body . . , l

Her deathbed was a device frequently used by Madame
to*command attention. On various occasions, she nomi-
nated a dozen different people as her successor, made wills,

1 Lucifer, October 1889.

311

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

left final instructions. The Colonel had solemnly promised
that no one but he should see her face after death. He was
to sew her up in a cloth and have her cremated. Her inabil-
ity to forget death, whistling to conceal her fear, may be a
clue to some of the strange behavior patterns that puzzled
and grieved those who loved her.

Now at last Madame was approaching the grim presence.
She had failed rapidly during the winter of 1890-1. Perhaps
life had become too easy. She had made such a valiant ef-
fort, had overcome such insuperable difficulties, that with
lack of opposition she lost her incentive. The Wheel of Life
was turning slowly, slowly; sometimes her chelas could not
be sure that it was moving at all. For several years Madame
had been suffering from Bright’s disease, rheumatism, and
a bad heart; her condition was now aggravated by an attack
of influenza. She struggled against giving up and, whenever
she could hold up her head, angrily insisted on staggering
back to her work table, shuffling her papers over and over,
dictating letters, messages, snatches of articles. In April
1891, Mrs. Besant left to attend the American Section’s
convention in Chicago, and H.P.B. asked her to deliver her
message, sad words from a shadowed valley:

Suffering in body as I am continually, the only consolation
that remains to me is to hear the progress of the Holy Cause to
which my health and strength have been given, but to which,
now that these are going, I can only offer my passionate de-
votion. 2

Increasingly she used words like Holy Cause, with their
ecclesiastical flavor, phrases reminiscent of the childhood
religion that she had bitterly reviled all her life. Approach-
ing the darkness of the end, she humbled her pride and se-
cretly joined the host of rebel spirits who, at the last minute,
creep back to Holy Church. In the privacy of her own heart,
her confidential Mahatmas, her occult powers fell away, and
she was left in that stark isolation which comes one day to
2 Anonymous: The Theosophical Movement, p. 281.

312

INTO THE SILENCE

every man. She confided in her sister, pretending that it was
part of her passionate loyalty to Russia. She had been called,
she wrote Vera, and she had called herself, a heathen, and
it was quite true that she detested “Anglican Phariseeism
and the Pope’s Christianity,” but when she read about the
spread of Russian Orthodoxy in Japan her heart rejoiced.
She abhorred all religious rituals except— she confessed it
shyly— “except that of our own church service.” She tried
to make a joke of it: she must have a bee in her bonnet, it
was so silly and inconsistent, but there it was.

She even admitted that at Fontainebleau she used to slip
off to Paris by herself to visit the Russian Cathedral, its
beautiful golden domes towering above the greenness of the
Parc Monceau. Inside the church, the sight of the old fa-
miliar ikons and symbols had been almost too much for
her. “I stood with my mouth open, as if standing before
my own dear mother whom I have not seen for years and
who could not recognize me.” 8 Touched by this wistful ref-
erence to their mother, Vera wrote to the Reverend E.
Smirnoff, the priest attached to the Russian Embassy in
London, and asked him to call. Helena received him
eagerly, and was grateful for this tardy reconciliation, but it
must be kept secret. Her public must never know.

H.P.B’s final message, My Books, written on April 28,
1891, ten days before her death, was an apologia not for
herself but for her Mahatmas. 4 It was a last passionate ef-
fort to breathe life into those wraithlike figures, her brain-
children. Disarmingly, she admitted the worst about Isis,
its misquotations, repetitions, and digressions; these errors
were all the fault of her assistants and of the publisher, the
printers, the proofreaders.

Her concern was to establish the inspired authorship of
all “my books,” Isis included. She owed only the most su-
perficial aid to her human assistants, and she categorically

8 Path, November 1895.

4 Lucifer, May 15, 1891.

313

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

denied receiving help of any importance from the Baron de
Palm manuscript, from Dr. Wilder, Olcott, Eliphas L6vi
. . . On the other hand, she freely admitted that “neither
the ideas nor the teachings” in her books were really hers;
every word came from “the teachings of our Eastern Mas-
ters,” and much of it “had been written by me under their
dictation.” Surely, and here was the crux of the matter, if
she were willing to relinquish credit for the authorship of her
only monuments, her books, such a statement must forever
establish the reality of her gurus. At the end of her check-
ered span of sixty years, which covered so many secrets, such
wild rebellions, such hours of anguish, this indomitable
woman was concerned only to safeguard her claim for the
reality of her Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi and all the
hierarchy.

Madame closed her essay with a quotation from Mon-
taigne: “I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers,
and have brought nothing of my own but the string that
ties them.” And she added sadly, “Is anyone of my helpers
prepared to say that I have not paid the full price for the
string?”

For a fortnight H.P.B’s condition fluctuated. By Tues-
day, May 5, 1891, her chelas kept a night-and-day watch,
giving her a tablespoon of brandy every two hours. As head-
strong and difficult as she had been all her life, she insisted
on getting dressed on Wednesday; leaning on the arms of
her chelas, she struggled to the big chair beside her work-
table. With a weary gesture she tried to snub out the cig-
arette that she could not smoke as she brooded over her
papers, holding them in her hands once more, trying to sort
them, giving instructions to destroy this and put that in
such a place. She tried to “make a patience,” but the cards
were too heavy for her beautiful, tired hands, and she went
on fumbling weakly with her papers. Her breathing had be-
come so difficult that she did not try to lie down again.
When the doctor praised her courage, she looked up at him

3*4

INTO THE SILENCE

with a meekness that stabbed the hearts of her chelas, and
whispered: “I do my best, Doctor.” With difficulty she
rolled and handed to him her last cigarette.

For two days and nights she sat in the big chair, propped
up with pillows, pitifully alone. The disciples who knelt
about her were callow youngsters ‘whom she scarcely knew.
The favorite chela, Annie Besant, was beyond her reach in
mid-Atlantic. Comrades who could have brought her the
reassurance of old memories had all been alienated. Olcott
was in Australia, the Countess Wachtmeister in Sweden;
the Keightleys were touring the world; most remote of all
were the Sinnetts, close by, in London, but totally estranged.

Although she was well aware of the supreme value of any
last words she might utter, confirmation that her Mahatmas
were supporting her, a last word of affection for her chelas,
at the end H.P.B. abandoned all pretense. She who had
failed so signally to attain self-control during her life met this
final challenge without a murmur, her eyes open, her face
composed and thoughtful. Fully conscious, she lingered on
until Friday, May 8. In those last hours of exile from her
beloved Russia, memory must have carried her back to the
Caucasus. Perhaps she felt again the wind in her face as she
galloped across the steppes with her Cossack escort, watched
the glow of their evening campfires, and felt once more the
choking thrill of their wild songs and dances. Her thoughts
may have come back to Avenue Road. Through the window
the fresh young green of Annie’s garden came to meet her
dying gaze. This was indeed her tidal wave, a high wall of
greenness, shot with sunlight, rolling toward her faster,
faster. Nothing could stop it now.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1831 Helena Hahn bom at Ekaterinoslav.

1848 July, marries General Nicephore Blavatsky.

October, leaves him.

1848-73 Vagabond Years.

1850 Constantinople, meets Metrovitch.

1858 Paris, meets D. D. Home, Baron Meyendorf.
December, returns to Russia.

1862 Ozoorgetty, buys house.

Child, Youry, bom, probably during spring.

1 863 Italy with Metrovitch and child.

1867 Child dies.

1871 Metrovitch drowned.

1872 Cairo, Societe Spirite.

Return to Odessa.

1873 March, Paris.

July, New York.

1874 October, meets Olcott at Crittenden, Vermont.

1875 March, first Tuitit Bey letter to Olcott.

April, marries Betanelly; July, leaves him.
September, founds Theosophical Society.

1 877 September, Isis Unveiled published.

1878 July, becomes American citizen.

December, sails for India.

1879 September, founds magazine, the Theosophist.

1880 September, Simla. Spectacular phenomena.
October, astral postoffice.

1 882 December, moves to Adyar, Madras.

1883 Summer at Ooty with General and Mrs. Morgan.

1884 February, visits Europe.

September, Coulomb letters published.

December, Hodgson begins investigation for

S. P. R. Report.

1885 March, H.P.B. leaves India.

August, Wurzburg; begins Secret Doctrine.

316

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

December, Countess Wachtmeister joins H.P.B.
S. P. R. Report published.

1886 February, writes My Confession to Solovyoff.
August, moves to Ostend.

Subba Row refuses to edit Secret Doctrine.

1 887 The Keightleys take H.P.B . to London.

H.P.B. founds magazine Lucifer, Blavatsky
Lodge, and the E. S.

1 888 Secret Doctrine published.

1889 May, Annie Besant joins Theosophical Society.

1890 H.P.B. moves to Mrs. Besant’s home on Avenue

Road, London.

1891 May 8, H.P.B. dies.

317

APPENDIX A

Statements by Mme Vera Jelihovsky after death of her
sister, Mme Blavatsky, discrediting her own earlier memoirs
written under domination of or at the dictation of Madame:

"I would not even dare to confirm the accounts taken down
from her own words which I used in my booklet. The Truth
about Mme. Blavatsky , published in 1881. She forgot so much
and mixed it up and, as it proved in our conversations later on,
she wanted to conceal so much that I prefer not to discuss those
years.”

And of Sinnett’s Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky,
supervised and censored by Madame: “I don’t dare to recom-
mend it to the reader as in it are many untruths, even in the
translations from my published stories.”— Russkoye Obozreniye,
November and December 1891.

Re Madame’s phenomena and supernatural hierarchy:

"... it would be better for her and for the Society if they
[the phenomena] were less spoken of or not at all; her too ardent
friends have rendered her poor service.”

Of the Brothers: "I have never seen them . . . these appa-
ritions have always seemed to me doubtful. . . . We her nearest
relatives never heard her speak of these enigmatic personages
until 1873-74 after she was settled in New York.” [This repu-
diates the 1870 letter to the aunt, Mme Fadeef.]— La Nouvelle
Revue, September and October 1892, Vol. LXXVIII.

Re accounts of vagabond years:

"Her stories about where she spent those long years are frag-
mentary and contradictory; it is impossible to get continuity or
even a sense of their being true.”— Russkoye Obozreniye.

Re materialization of spirits of relatives at Eddy farm:

“We were not impressed by these events, I thought them a
fable and invented story ... so shocked me that 1 wrote her a
resentful letter. . . .

[When H.P.B. wrote of founding the T. S.] "and that she was
going to write a book about it I was frightened and thought she
had really gone crazy. To my despairing appeal to pull herself
together, I received an answer convincing me more than ever

318

APPENDIXES

that she was almost if not quite unbalanced mentally. I was wor-
ried and waited anxiously to hear what might happen next.”—
Rtisskoye Ohozreniye.

Re New York period when she came under the influence
of Dr. Wilder:

“What astonished us most was the profound erudition, the
broad knowledge which she suddenly exhibited in her writings.
Whence had she derived this varied scholarship of which she
had never previously given any sign. When she first talked to
us about it, it was of a single Master, but in a very vague way,
calling him sometimes The Voice. . . . Recalling her ‘ignorance
crasse’ until she was 14, she marvelled, in letters to her aunt, that
men like Prof. Wilder, orientalist and archaeologist and many
others now consulted her on all sorts of scientific questions, as-
suring her that she was better informed than they.”— La Nou-
velle Revue.

APPENDIX B

The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett. Letter 60,
undated, but written early in 1886:

“I will try to do what I can to enliven the narrative in the
Memoirs, because I promised I would. ... Of course as they
now stand— those unfortunate Memoirs do remind one of a Harle-
quin’s costume sown out of different patches. This is not your
fault for you have done the best you could under the circum-
stances. . . . Lying— brilliant lively fiction would answer better
than such bits and snaps from one’s long, miserable, eventful
and ever slandered life, as mine was. . . .

“I am repeatedly reminded of the fact, that, as a public char-
acter, as a woman who, instead of pursuing her womanly duties,
sleeping with her husband, breeding children, wiping their noses,
minding her kitchen and consoling herself with matrimonial
assistants on the sly and behind her husband’s back, I have cho-
sen a path that has led me to notoriety and fame; and that there-
fore I had to expect all that befell me.

“Very well, I admit it and agree. But I say at the same time
to the world: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am in your hands and
subject and subordinate to the world’s jury only since I founded
the T. S. Between H. P. Blavatsky from 1875 and H.P.B. from

319

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

1830 to that date is a veil drawn and you are in no way con-
cerned with what took place behind it, before I appeared as a
public character. It was my private life holy and sacred, to all
but the slanderous and venomous mad-dogs who poke their noses
under cover of the night into every family's and every individ-
ual’s private lives. To those hyenas who will unearth every tomb
by night to get at the corpses and devour them, I owe no expla-
nations. If I am prevented by circumstance from killing them, I
have to suffer, but no one can expect me to stand on Trafalgar
Square and to be taking into my confidence all the city roughs
and cabmen that pass. . . .

"Had I even been all they accuse me of; had I had lovers and
children by the bushels, who among all that lot is pure enough
to throw at me openly and publicly the first stone? The higher
spheres of Society from Grand Duchesses and Princesses of blood
down to their cameristes—zre all honeycombed with secret sen-
suality, licentiousness and prostitution. . . . Out of ten women
married and unmarried if you find one who is pure— I am ready
to proclaim the present world comparatively holy, yet, with very
few exceptions, all the women are liars to themselves as to others.
Men are all no better than animals and brutes in their lower na-
tures. And it is they, such a lot, that I am going to ask to sit in
judgement over me ... by describing certain events in my life
in the Memoirs. . . . ‘Dear ladies and gentlemen, you, who have
never failed to sin behind a shut door, you, who are all tainted
with the embraces of other women’s husbands and other men’s
wives, you, not one of whom is exempt from the pleasure of
keeping a skeleton or two m your family closets— please take my
defence.’ No sir, I die rather than do it!” (P. 142.)

APPENDIX C

Mary K. Neff: Personal Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky. 1937.
(The author is a Theosophist and was given access to the
Adyar archives.)

Re marriage of Mme Blavatsky and Betanelly:

"The marriage took place between March 11th and 22nd; for
the Colonel’s book . . . was published March 11th. . . .”

320

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX D

Statement in H.P.B's Scrapbooks to explain her supernatu-
ral mission to the United States and to justify her turning
against spiritualism:

"important notice

“Yes. I am sorry that I had to identify myself during that
shameful exposure of the mediums Holmes with the Spiritualists.
I had to save the situation, for I was sent from Paris on purpose
to America to prove the phenomena and their reality and— show
the fallacy of die Spiritualistic theories of ‘Spirits/ But how could
I do it best? I did not want people at large to know that I could
produce the same thing at will. I had received orders to the con-
trary, and yet, I had to keep alive the reality, the genuineness
and possibility of such phenomena in the hearts of those who
from Materialists had turned Spiritualists ; and now, owing to
the exposure of several mediums, fell back again, returned to
their scepticism. That is why, selecting a few of the faithful, I
went to the Holmeses and helped M.'., and his powers brought
out the face of John King and Katie King in the astral light, pro-
duced the phenomena of materialization and— allowed the Spir-
itualists at large to believe it was done thro’ the mediumship of
Mrs. Holmes. She was terribly frightened herself, for she knew
that this once the apparition was real. Did I do wrong? The
world is not prepared to understand the philosophy of Occult
’Sciences— let them assure themselves first of all that there are
beings in an invisible world, whether ‘Spirits’ of the dead or Ele-
mental; and that there are hidden powers in man which are
capable of making a God of him on earth.

“When I am dead and gone people will, perhaps, appreciate
my disinterested motives. I have pledged my word to help people
on to Truth while living and— will keep my word. Let them
abuse and revile me. Let some call me a Medium and a Spiritual-
ist, and others an impostor. The day will come when posterity
will learn to know me better.

“Oh poor, foolish, credulous, wicked world!

“M.*. brings orders to form a Society— a secret Society like
the Rosicrucian Lodge. He promises help.” — Olcott: Old Diary
Leaves , 1, 13.

321

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

APPENDIX E

Mme Blavatsky’s pseudo-confession in the New York
World , May 6, 1877:

To the Editor of The World:

Sir,— Since the first month of my arrival in America I began, for
reasons mysterious but perhaps intelligible, to provoke hatred
among those who pretend to be on good terms with me, if not
the best of friends. Slanderous reports, vile insinuations, innu-
endo, have rained about me. For more than three years I have
kept silent, although the least of the offences attributed to me
was calculated to excite the loathing of a person of my disposi-
tion. I have rid myself of a number of these retailers of slander,
but finding that I was actually suffering in the estimation of
friends whose good opinion I valued, I adopted a policy of se-
clusion.

For two years my world has been in my apartments, and for
an average of at least seventeen hours a day I have sat at my
desk with my books and manuscripts as my companions. During
this time many highly valued acquaintances have been formed
with ladies and gentlemen who have sought me out without ex-
pecting me to return their visits. I am an old woman, and I feel
the need of fresh air as well as any one, but my disgust for the
lying, slanderous world that we find outside of “heathen” coun-
tries has been such that in seven months I believe I have been
out but three times.

But no retreat is secure against the anonymous slanderer who
uses the United States mail. Letters have been received by my
trusted friends containing the foulest aspersions upon myself. At
various times I have been charged with (1) drunkenness; (2)
forgery; (3) being a Russian spy; (4) with being an anti-Russian
spy; (5) with being no Russian at all, but a French adventuress;
(6) of having been in jail for theft; (7) of being the mistress of
a Polish count in Union Square; (8) with murdering seven hus-
bands; (9) with bigamy; (10) of being the mistress of Colonel
Olcott; (11) also of an acrobat. Other things might be men-
tioned but decency forbids.

Since the arrival of Wong Chin Foo the game has recom-
menced with double activity. I have received anonymous letters
and others and newspaper slips, telling infamous stones about

322

APPENDIXES

him; on his part, he has received communications about us, one
of which I beg to insert.

May 4th.

Does the disciple of Buddha know the character of the people
with whom he is at present residing? The surroundings of a
teacher of morality and religion should be moral. Are his so? On
the contrary, they are people of very doubtful reputation, as he
can ascertain by applying at the nearest police station. A Friend.

... I invite everyone possessed of such proofs as will vindi-
cate them in a court of justice to publish them over their own sig-
natures in the newspapers. I will furnish to everyone a list of
my several residences, and contribute toward paying detectives
to trace my every step. But I hereby give notice that if any more
unverifiable slanders can be traced to responsible sources I will
invoke the protection of the law, which, on the theory of your
national Constitution, was made for heathen as well as Christian
denizens. And I further notify slanderers of a speculative turn
that no blackmail is paid at No. 392 West Forty-seventh Street.

Respectfully,

H. P. Blavatsky.

May 5th, 1877.

APPENDIX F

Statement by Major Henderson, Chief of the India Police,
in the Times of India, quoted in Report of the Society for
Psychical Research, p. 266.

“On the day in question, I declared the saucer to be an in-
complete and unsatisfactory manifestation, as not fulfilling
proper test conditions. My reasonable doubt was construed as
a personal insult, and I soon discovered that a sceptical frame of
mind in the inquirer is not favorable to the manifestation of the
marvels of Theosophy. ... I am not a Theosophist nor a be-
liever in the phenomenon, which I entirely discredit."

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

APPENDIX G

Mahatma Letters to A. P . Sinnett . Quotations from sup-
posed writings of Mahatmas illustrating H.P.B’s methods
of establishing their reality, and supporting her policies.

Developing Personality of Mahatmas:

The austere Master Morya thanks Sinnett for the gift of a pipe,
which had been forwarded by H.P.B.: ‘Very kind of Sinnett
Sahib— many thanks and salams [sic] for the tobacco machine—
the pipe is short and my nose long, so we will agree very well
together, I hope. Yours always, M.” (P. 374.)

October 1882. Master K. H. was staying near Pari Jong at
gun-pa of friend, busy with important affairs. Received Sinnett’s
last letter as he was crossing large inner courtyard of monastery,
listening to the Lama Tondhub Gyatcho; tried to slip letter into
travelling bag hanging from his shoulder, but it dropped un-
noticed to the ground: “my attention being wholly absorbed with
the conversation, I had already reached the staircase leading to
the library door when I heard the voice of a young gyloong call-
ing out from a window. . . . Turning round I saw a venerable
old goat in the act of making a morning meal of it [the letter].
The creature had already devoured part of C. C. Ms letter, and
was thoughtfully preparing to have a bite at yours, more delicate
and easy for chewing with his old tooth than the tough envelope
and paper of your correspondent’s epistle. . • . The envelope
with your crest on had nearly disappeared, the contents of the
letters made illegible.” K. H. was embarrassed, could not miracu-
lously restore the letter because of red tape restrictions. Just then
he saw the Maha Chohan’s ‘holy face before me, with his eye
twinkling in quite an unusual manner, and heard his voice: *Why
break the rule? I will do it myself / . . . He has restored the miss-
ing parts and done it quite neady too, as you see, and even trans-
formed a crumpled, broken envelope, very much damaged, into
a new one— crest and all. ... I thanked the goat heartily . . .
and to show my gratitude I strengthened what remained of
teeth in his mouth, and set the dilapidated remains firmly in
their sockets, so that he may chew food harder than English let-
ters for several years to come.” (Pp. 320-1.)

K. H. to Sinnett: “You my good friend whom I had once or

324

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twice the pleasure of hearing playing on your piano in the quiet
intervals between dress-coating and a beef-and-claret dinner—
tell me, could you favour me as readily, as with one of your easy
waltzes— with one of Beethoven’s Grand Sonatas? Pray have pa-
tience.” (P. 115.)

Confidential to Sinnett; going over the head of H.P.B.

Master M. to Sinnett, transmitted by Damodar: “The Old
Woman? Of course she will be frantic— but who cares? It’s kept
from her, however, secret. No use making her more miserable
than what she is.” (P. 271.) K. H. to Sinnett (about February
1883): “Do not listen to the old woman— she becomes weak-
minded when left to herself. But M. will take her in hand. Yours,
K. H. (P. 440.) Contemptuous of all women; K. H. to Sinnett,
August 23, 1882, (marked “Private and Confidential”): “Gener-
ally I never trust a woman any more than I would an echo; both
are of the female gender because the goddess Echo, like woman
. . . will always have the last Word. . . . Beware of poor Mrs.
Gordon. An excellent lady, but would talk Death herself to
death” (P. 302.) “Women do lack the power of concentration.”
(P. 36.) “Verily woman is a dreadful calamity.” (P. 421.) “The
book [Occult World by Sinnett] is out, and we have to patiently
wait for the results of that first serious shot at the enemy. Art
Magic [by Mrs. Britten] and Isis [by H.P.B. ] emanating from
women . . . could never hope for a serious hearing.” (P. 50.)

Complex Attitude of Mahatmas' toward H.P.B.

Disparagement: “Our old lady is weak and her nerves are
worked to a fiddle string; so is her jaded brain. . . . Another fine
example of the habitual disorder in which Mrs. H.P.B s mental
furniture is kept. As in her writing room, confusion is ten times
confounded, so in her mind are crowded ideas piled in such a
chaos that when she wants to express them the tail peeps out be-
fore the head. . . . H.P.B. is a fanatic in her way, and is unable
to write with anything like system and calmness.” (Pp. 39, 105,
129.)

Justification : “I am painfully aware of the fact that the ha-
bitual incoherence of her statements— especially when excited
—and her strange ways make her in your opinion a very unde-
sirable transmitter of our messages. Nevertheless, kind Brothers,
once that you have learned the truth; once told, that this unbal-
anced mind, the seeming incongruity of her speeches and ideas,

325

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

her nervous excitement, all that in short, which is so calculated
to upset the feelings of sober minded people, whose notions of
reserve and manners are shocked by such strange outbursts of
what they regard as her temper, and which so revolt you,— once
that you know that nothing of it is due to any fault of hers you
may, perchance, be led to regard her in quite a different light.
Notwithstanding that the time is not quite ripe to let you entirely
into the secret ... I am empowered to allow you a glimpse be-
hind the veil. This state of hers is intimately connected with her
occult training in Tibet. . . . Try to believe more in the old lady.
She does rave betimes; but she is truthful and does the best she
can for you.” Master K. H., Simla, autumn 1881. (P. 203.) “The
Old Woman is accused of untruthfulness , inaccuracy. . . . She
is forbidden to say what she knows. You may cut her to pieces
and she will not tell. Nay— she is ordered in cases of need to mis-
lead people. She is too truthful , too outspoken , too incapable of
dissimulation and now she is being daily crucified for it.” Master
M., March 3, 1882. (P. 272.) “The right is on her side. Your
accusations are extremely unjust. ... If you still maintain the
same attitude— I shall have to . . . wish you with all my heart
better success with more worthy teachers. She certainly lacks
charity, but indeed, you lack discrimination. Regretfully yours,
K. H.” (P. 375.) “Remember what I said to you some two years
ago were H.P.B. to die before we found a substitute' the powers
through which we work in our communications with the outside
world may permit the transmission of two or three letters more,
then it would die out and you would have no more letters from
me. Well— she is virtually dead; and it is yourself— pardon me
this one more truth— who have killed the rude but faithful agent,
one moreover who was really devoted to you personally. . . .
Verily our ways are not your ways, hence there remains but little
hope for us in the West.” Master K. H., October 1884. (P. 368.)

Estimate of H.P.B. by Master K . H. “Do you want to know
how far she is guilty? . . . [Her only] real, deliberate deception
[was] when in the presence of phenomena produced, she kept
constantly denying . . . that she had anything to do with their
production personally. From your ‘European standpoint' it is
downright deception, a big thundering lie; from our Asiatic
standpoint, though an imprudent, blamable zeal, an untruthful
exaggeration . . . yet withal, if we look into the motive— a sub-
lime, self-denying, noble and meritorious— not dishonest— zeal.
Yes; in that and in that alone she became constantly guilty of

326

APPENDIXES

deceiving her friends. She could never be made to realize . . .
in attributing to us phenomena of the most childish nature, she
but lowered us in the public estimation and sanctioned the claim
of her enemies that she was hut a medium!’ She can and did
produce phenomena . . • sometimes better, more wonderful
and far more perfect than those of some high initiated chelas.

. . . We cannot help feeling at times angry with, oftener laugh-
ing at her . . . this ridiculous effusion is too ardent, too sincere
and true not to be respected. ... I do not believe I was ever
so profoundly touched by anything I witnessed in all my life, as
I was with the poor old creature’s ecstatic rapture when meeting
us recently both in our natural bodies [after several years’ ab-
sence]. Even our phlegmatic M. was thrown off his balance by
such an exhibition— of which he was chief hero. He had to use
his power , and plunge her into a profound sleep, otherwise she
would have burst some blood vessel including kidneys, liver and
her ‘interiors’ ... in her delirious attempts to flatten her nose
against his riding mantle besmeared with the Sikkim mud. We
both laughed; yet could we feel otherwise than touched? Of
course she is utterly unfit for a true adept : her nature is too pas-
sionately affectionate and we have no right to indulge in personal
attachments.” October 1882. (Pp. 311-14.)

Explaining Mistakes

K. H. re Swami Dayanand, October 1882: “If my word of
honour has any weight with you, then know that D. Swami was
an initiated Yogi, a very high chela at Badrinath, endowed some
years back with great powers and a knowledge he has since for-
feited. . . . And now see what has become of this truly great
man ... a moral wreck, ruined by his ambition.” (P. 309.)

The following passages appeared in the summer of 1884 when
a crash was imminent: “We are not infallible, all-forseeing Ma-
hatmas at every hour of the day, good friends; none of you have
even learned to remember so much. . . . You do not find certain
recent letters and notes of mine ‘philosophical’ and in my usual
style. It could scarcely be helped. . . . You have too much in-
telligence not to see clearly, as the Americans would say— the
fi xl am in , and that I personally can do very little.” (Pp. 364,
370.)

Concerning Truth

Reply by K. H. to Hume’s warning against Fern, August 1882:
“Our eastern ideas about ‘motives,’ ‘truthfulness,’ and honesty’

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

differ considerably from your ideas in the West . . • your civi-
lized Western Society, Church, and State, politics and com-
merce have come to assume a virtue that it is quite impossible
for either a man of education, a statesman, a trader, or anyone
else living in the world— to practice in an unrestricted sense.
. . . What would you think of a gentleman or lady . . . who
in meeting you would tell you plainly and abruptly what he
thinks of you? . . • All is lie , all falsehood , around and in us, my
brother. . . . “Thou shall in lying, stealing, killing, etc. avoid
being detected —seems to be the chief commandment of the
Lord gods of civilization— Society and Public Opinion." (Pp.
232-3.)

APPENDIX H

Paris , 1st April , 1884
46 Rue Notre Dame des Champs.
My dear Monsieur and Madame Coulomb :

I address this letter to you both, because I think it well that
you should lay your heads together and think seriously about it.
... I will first transcribe certain passages from several letters
which I have just received from Adyar. I will not dwell upon
what is there said respecting Madame Coulomb . . . who “tries
her best to undermine the power of the Society by talking . . .
against it.” Mr. Lane-Fox says in his letter, “She opposes every-
thing that is intended for the benefit of the Society. But these are
perhaps trifling things which might be counteracted. More seri-
ous is the fact that she says she lent you money in Egypt.” (That
I have never hidden. I have told it to everybody; and at the time
of the Wimbridge-Bates tragedy, I announced publicly that I
was under obligation to you, since, when no one would aid me—
me a stranger in Cairo— you alone and M. Coulomb helped me,
gave me hospitality, loans of money, etc.; I have always said
more even than you really did.) Well, I continue my copying—
“she says the money was never repaid; that M. Coulomb has
been constructing secret trap-doors for the producing of occult
phenomena, that she could tell— the Lord knows what— if she
wanted to; and lastly, her foolish assertion that the Theosophical
Society was founded to overthrow British rule in India. . .

Oh, Madame Coulomb! what then have I done to you, that
you should try to ruin me in this way? Is it because for four years
we lived together, helping each other to meet the troubles of

328

APPENDIXES

life, and because I have left everything in the house in your
hands, saying to you continually, “Take what money you need”
that you seek to ruin me for life . . . ?

They [the Adyar correspondents] add: “Furthermore, we have
sufficient evidence through herself , that she is made use of by
black magicians, not only to interfere with the welfare of the So-
ciety, but especially to exert a poisonous and detrimental influ-
ence on Damodar. ...”

Why does she hate me? What have I done to her? I know that
I am bad-tempered, violent, that without intending it I have
perhaps offended her more than once. But what evil have I ever
done to her? Since our arrival at Adyar I have truly and sincerely
loved her, and since my departure I have thought only of buying
her something at Paris which she needed, and of how I could
put you in the possession of 2,000 or 3,000 R[upee]s in order
that she might go and reside for the summer at Ootacamund, or
settle elsewhere and keep a boarding-house, or indeed do any-
thing for herself and you. . . .

For see again what that poor boy Damodar says, who has
written a despairing letter. ... “I am between the horns of a
dilemma. . . . Master tells me that Mme. Coulomb must be
treated with consideration and respect and, on the other hand,
she tells me and has been saymg to everyone that you are a fraud
— performing phenomena by means of secret spring trap
doors. . . .”

Well now, what do you say to all that? What end do you ex-
pect to gain Mme. Coulomb, by allowing people to believe of
you that which you are incapable of doing , i.e. of [employing]
black magic against a Society which protects you, which works
for you, if you have worked for it (and God knows the obliga-
tions which we owe entirely to you M. Coulomb, for all that
you have done for us since we came to Adyar) . That you have
worked for us I say aloud, and that working, you have a right
to our gratitude, and to your clothing and food, and to live at
the cost of the Society as far as its funds allow— I say it again.
But what purpose have you in going and vilifying me secretly to
those who love me and beheve in me? What vengeance have
you against me? What have I done to you, I ask again? . . .

Ah well, d Id grace de Dieu. Accuse me, denounce me, ruin
H. P. Blavatsky who has never hated or betrayed you, who al-
most ruined the Society ... in order to sustain and protect
you in opposition to all — even the Colonel; and that when she

329

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

was not able to do it without danger to herself. But remember,
you who speak so much of God and of Christ, that if there be a
God, He will assuredly not reward you for the evil which you
try to do to those who have never done anything to you. ... I
have even asked that they should nominate M. Coulomb as one
of the trustees, so much do I need him to build a room.

. . . May 1 perish, but may the cause flourish! If you com-
promise me ... I shall never return to Adyar, but will, remain
here or in London, where I will prove by phenomena more mar-
vellous still that they are true and that our Mahatmas exist, for
there is one here at Paris, and there will also he in London . . . .
Why do you wish to make the Colonel hate you, and set him
against you as you have put all at Adyar against you? Why not
quietly remain friends and wait for better days, helping us to
put the Society on a firm basis, having large’ funds, of which all
theosophists who have need of protection and help in money
would reap the benefit? Why not accept the 2,000 Rs. which Mr.
Lane-Fox offered you, and spend the hot months at Ooty, and
the cool months with us, as in the past? . . .

Come, I have no ill-will against you. I am so much accustomed
to terror and suffering that nothing astonishes me. But what truly
astonishes me is to see you, who are such an intelligent woman,
doing evil for its own sake, and running the risk of being swal-
lowed up in the pit which you have digged— yourself the first
victim. . . . Undo then the evil which you have unwittingly
done. I am sure of this— [you are] carried away by your nerves,
your sickness, your sufferings. . . . But if you choose to go on
disgracing me for no good to yourself— do it; and may your
Christ and God repay you!

After all, I sign myself with anguish of heart which you can
never comprehend—

for ever your friend,

H. P. Blavatsky

Mme E. Coulomb: Some Account of My Intercourse

with Madame Blavatsky

APPENDIX I

Letter from Master K. H. to Damodar, March 1884, pre-
sumably written by Damodar. Quoted in Report of the
Society for Psychical Research, p. 278.

33 °

APPENDIXES

“So long as one has not developed a perfect sense of justice,
he should prefer to err rather on the side of mercy than commit
the slightest act of injustice. Madame Coulomb is a medium, and
as such irresponsible for many things she may say or do. At the
same time, she is kind and charitable. One must know how to act
toward her to make her a very good friend. She has her own
weaknesses, but their bad effects can be minimized by exerciz-
ing on her mind a moral influence by a friendly and kindly feel-
ing. Her mediumistic nature is a help in this direction, if proper
advantage be taken of the same.

“It is my wish, therefore, that she shall continue in charge of
the household business, the Board of Control of course exerciz-
ing a proper supervisory control, and seeing, in consultation with
her, that no unnecessary expenditure is incurred. A good deal of
reform is necessary, and can be made rather with the help than
the antagonism of Mme. Coulomb. Damodar will have told you
this, but his mind was purposely obscured, without his knowl-
edge to test your intentions. Show this to Mme. Coulomb so that
she may cooperate with you.

k. Hr

APPENDIX J

Letters from Mme Blavatsky giving instructions to M. and
Mme Coulomb for production of phenomena, published in
Christian College Magazine , Madras, 1883:

Dear Marquis [M. Coulomb]— I leave the fate of my children
[occult letters inclosed] in your hands. Take care of them and
make them work miracles. Perhaps it would be better to make
this one fall on his head? H.P.B.

Seal the child after reading it. Register your letters if there is
anything within— otherwise, never mind. [Translated from the
French]

Dear M. Coulomb, This is what I think you ought to have. Try
if you think it is going to be a success to have a larger audience
than our domestic imbeciles only. It is well worth the trouble,
for the Adyar saucer [pintray] might become historical like the
Simla cup. ... My Salaams and thanks to you. H.P.B.

. . . You need not wait for the man “Punch” [Ragoonath
Rao]. Provided the thing takes place in the presence of respect-

331

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

able persons besides our own familiar muffs. I beg you to do it
at the first opportunity.

Poona, Mercredi. [October 1883]

Ma Chdre Marquise [Mme Coulomb],— Holkar— fiasco. Tant
mieux, il m’envoie 200 rupees pour mes depenses; aura eu peur
de quelque sacr6 official bigot. Damn him.

[The Maharajah Holkar ruled the province of Indore which
was a center of rebellion against the British during the Mutiny.
He evidently failed to produce the generous contribution antici-
pated, but at least, he gave Madame Rs. 200 for her expenses.]

[To Mme Coulomb] : Now dear, let us change the programme.
. . . Jacob Sassoon, the happy proprietor of a crore of rupees,
with whose family I dined last night,' is anxious to become a
Theosophist. He is ready to give 10,000 rupees to buy and re-
pair the headquarters, he said to Colonel ... if only he saw a
little phenomenon, got the assurance that the Mahatmas could
hear what was said, or gave him some other sign of their exist-
ence (?!!). . . . Will you go up to the shrine and ask K. H. to
send me a telegram that would reach me about four or five in
the afternoon, same day, worded thus:

“Your conversation with Mr. Jacob Sassoon reached Master
just now. Were the latter even to satisfy him, still the doubter
would hardly find the moral courage to connect himself with the
society. Ramalinga Deb.”

If this reaches me on the 26th, even in the evening, it will still
produce a tremendous impression. Address care of N. Kanda-
lawala. Judge, Poona. Je ferai le reste, Cela coutera quatre or
cinq roupies. Cela ne fait rien. [It will cost 4 or 5 rupees. That is
nothing .]

H.P.B.

APPENDIX K

The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett. Comments
on the entanglement of her chela Mohim with Miss L. and
others in Paris:

Ludwig Strasse 6, Wurzburg, Oct. 9th, 1885
My dearest Mrs. Sinnett :

. . . Speak of the inner Circle of the Oriental Croup! The Ro-
man group it ought to be called with all those Messalines in it.

33 2

APPENDIXES

... If Sodom was justly punished, then so would the Oriental
group be . . . my heart has changed into a pillar of ice, cold
marble with horror. . . . But know one thing: the Anglo-French
messaline who, inveigling Mohini into the Barbyan wood, sud-
denly, and seeing that her overtures in words were left without
effect— slipped down her loose garment to the waist leaving her
entirely nude before the boy— is not the worse one in the Ori-
ental group. Of all those pure “Vestals” she is only the most
frankly dissolute, but not either the most lustful or sinful. There
are others in the group, and not one but four in number who
bum with a scandalous, ferocious passion for Mohini. . . . Oh
the filthy beasts!! the sacrilegious, hypocritical harlots! . . .
And let not Mr. Sinnett or yourself say “nonsense” to this. I have
all the proofs in hand; letters, notes and even confessions , auto-
graph confessions to little D. N. [Dharbagiri Nath, an alias
used by Babaji], . . . One of these days one or the other of the
London Potiphars shall turn round in her fury and act like Mrs.
Potiphar of the Pharaohs, shall father her own iniquities upon
Mohini and— ruin the Society and his reputation. D. N. got from
him all these epistles to keep. . . . (Pp. 123—4.)

February 16th , 1886

My dear Mr. Sinnett ,

... I was mad to think that any woman would dare write
to Mohini such letters and saw plainly that he was guilty . . .
of yielding to an adoration that tickled his vanity, of correspond-
ing with a woman in love with him. And you know that had I
even believed in my heart that he was guilty , I would screen him,
a chela , one connected with the Masters— with my own body,
not for his own sake for I would have done everything secretly
and underhand to rid the Society of such a hypocritical monster
—but I would have cut off my tongue before saying or confessing
it to anyone. It would have been suicidal for the Society, my-
self, and thrown a new slur on the Masters. . . .

... I do not believe Mohini guilty — never did of the con-
summation of the last criminal act. But if he has indeed written

letters to Miss “nearly 100 in number” and “couched in the

most extraordinary terms,” I will retract the words “Potiphar”
and other “libellous” terms and write to her through her law-
yers. . . . (Pp. 184-5.)

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

APPENDIX L

To Vsevolod Sergyeevich Solovyoff: A Modern Priestess of
Isis . “My Confession” [undated, but written February
1886],

I have made up my mind [doubly underlined]. Has the fol-
lowing picture ever presented itself to your literary imagination?
There is living in the forest a wild boar— an ugly creature but
doing no harm to anyone. . . . There is let loose upon him, with-
out rhyme or reason, a pack of ferocious hounds; men chase him
from the wood, threaten to bum his native forest . . . though
he is no coward by nature, he flies for a while before these
hounds; he tries to escape for the sake of the forest , lest they
bum it down! . . .

Worn out, the boar sees that his forest is already set on fire
and that he cannot save it nor himself. What is there for the boar
to do? Why this; he stops, he turns his face to the furious pack
of hounds and beasts, and shows himself wholly as he is from
top to bottom, and then falls upon his enemies in his turn, and
kills as many of them as his strength serves till he falls dead. . . .

Believe me, I have fallen because I have made up my mind to
fall, or else to bring about a reaction by telling all Gods truth
about myself, but without mercy on my enemies . ... I will fly
no more. ... A Frenchman is ready, and a well-known journal-
ist too, delighted to set about the work and to write at my dicta-
tion something short, but strong, and what is most important—
a true history of my life. I shall not even attempt to defend to
justify myself. In this book I shall simply say:

In 1848, 1, hating my husband, N. V. Blavatsky (it may have
been wrong, but still such was the nature God gave me) left him,
abandoned him— a virgin (I shall produce documents and letters
proving this, although he himself is not such a swine as to deny
it). I loved one man deeply but still more I loved occult science,
believing in magic, wizards, etc. I wandered with him here and
there, in Asia, in America and in Europe. I met with So-and-so.
(You may call him a wizard, what does it matter to him?) In
1858 I was in London; there came out some story about a child,
not mine (there will follow medical evidence from the faculty of
Paris, and it is for this that I am going to Paris).

One thing and another was said of me; that I was depraved,

334

APPENDIXES

possessed with a devil, etc. I shall tell everything as I think fit,
everything I did for the twenty years and more that I laughed at
the quen dira-t-on [what will they say] and covered up all traces
of what I was really occupied in, i.e., the sciences occultes for
the sake of my family and relations who would at that time have
cursed me.

I will tell how from my 18th year I tried to get people to talk
about me, and say about me that this man and that was my lover,
and hundreds of them. I will tell too a great deal of which no
one ever dreamed, and 1 will prove it. Then I will inform the
world how suddenly my eyes were opened to all the horror of
my moral suicide; how I was sent to America to try my psycho-
logical capabilities. How I collected a society there and began
to expiate my faults, and attempted to make men better and to
sacrifice myself for their regeneration.

I will name all the theosophists who were brought into the
right way, drunkards and rakes, who became almost saints, espe-
cially in India, and those who enlisted as theosophists, and con-
tinued their former life (and there are many of them) and yet
were the first to join the pack of hounds that were hunting me
down, and to bite me. I will describe many Russians, great, and
small— Madame S— among them, her slander and how it turned
out to be a lie and a calumny.

I shall not spare myself, I swear I will not spare; I myself will
set fire to the four quarters of my native wood; the society to wit,
and I will perish, but I will perish with a huge following.

God grant I shall die, shall perish at once on publication; but
if not, if the master would not allow it, how should I fear any-
thing? Am I a criminal before the law? Have I killed anyone, de-
stroyed, defamed? I am an American foreigner, and I must not
go back to Russia.

From Blavatsky, if he is alive, what have I to fear? It is 38
years since I parted from him, after that I passed three days and
a half with him in Tiflis in 1863, and then we parted again. Or
M— ? [Baron Meyendorf?] I do not care a straw about that ego-
tist and hypocritel He betrayed me, destroyed me by telling lies
to the medium Home, who has been disgracing me for ten years
already, so much the worse for him.

You understand it is for the sake of the society I have valued
my reputation these ten years. I trembled lest rumours founded
on my own efforts (a splendid case for the psychologists , for
Richet and Co.) and magnified a hundred times, might throw

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PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

discredit on the society while blackening me. I was ready to go
on my knees to those who helped me to cast a veil over my past;
to give my life and all my powers to those who helped me. But
now?

Will you, or Home the medium, or M— , or anyone in the
world, frighten me with threats when I have myself resolved on
a full confession? Absurd! I tortured and killed myself with fear
and terror that I should damage the society— kill it. But now I
torture myself no more. I have thought it all out, coolly and
sanely, I have risked all on a single card— all! I will snatch the
weapon from my enemies' hands and write a book which will
make a noise through all Europe and Asia and bring in immense
sums of money to support my orphan niece, an innocent child,
my brother's orphan.

Even if all the filth, all the scandal and lies against me had
been the holy truth, still I should have been no worse than hun-
dreds of princesses, countesses, court ladies and royalties, than
Queen Isabella herself, who have given themselves, even sold
themselves to the entire male sex, from nobles to coachmen and
waiters inclusive; what can they say of me worse than that? And
all this I myself will say and sign.

No! The devils will save me in this last great hour. You did
not calculate on the cool determination of despair which was and
has passed over. ... I will even take to lies, to the greatest of
lies, which for that reason is the most likely of all to be believed.
I will say and publish it in the Times and in all the papers, that
\ the “master” and “Mahatma K. H.” are only the product of my
own imagination; that I invented them, that the phenomena were
all more or less spiritualistic apparitions, and I shall have 20 mil-
lion spiritists in a body at my back.

I will say that in certain instances I fooled people; I will ex-
pose dozens of fools , des hallucines; I will say that I was making
trial for my own satisfaction, for the sake of experiment. And to
this I have been brought by you. You have been the last straw
which has broken the camel's back under its intolerably heavy
burden.

Now you are at liberty to conceal nothing. Repeat to all Paris
what you have ever heard or know about me. I have already
written a letter to Sinnett forbidding him to publish my memoirs
at his own discretion. I myself will publish them with all the
truth. So there will be the “ truth about H. P. Blavatsky” in which
psychology and her own and others 9 immorality and Rome and

336

Her fighting days were over

H.P.B. in her perambulator, attended by James M. Pryse (left) and G. R. S. Mead (right)

APPENDIXES

politics and all her own and others 9 filth once more will be set
out to Gods world. I shall conceal nothing.

It will be a Saturnalia of the moral depravity of mankind, this
confession of mine, a worthy epilogue of my stormy life. And it
will be a treasure for science as well as for scandal: and it is all
me, me; I will show myself with a reality which will break many
and will resound through the world. Let the psychist gentlemen,
and whosoever will set on foot a new inquiry. Mohini and all
the rest, even India, are dead for me. I thirst for one thing only,
that the world may know all the reality, all the truth, and learn
the lesson. And then death , kindest of all.

H. Blavatsky.

You may print this letter if you will, even in Russia. It is all
the same now.

APPENDIX M

William Emmette Coleman: “The Sources of Madame
Blavatsky’s Writings.” Appendix C in SolovyofFs A Mod-
ern Priestess of Isis :

In Isis Unveiled, published in 1877, I discovered some 2,000
passages copied from other books without proper credit. By care-
ful analysis I found that in compiling Isis about 100 books were
used. About 1400 books are quoted from. . . . There are in Isis
about 2100 quotations from and references to books that were
copied at second-hand . . . only about 140 are credited to the
books from which Madame Blavatsky copied them at second-
hand. The others are quoted in such a manner as to lead the
reader to think that Madame Blavatsky had read and utilized
the original works. . . . The books utilized were nearly all cur-
rent nineteenth-century literature. . . .

Here follows a list of some of the more extensive plagiarisms in
Isis . . . and the number of passages that were plagiarized:

Ennemoser’s History of Magic, English translation 107 passages

Demonologia 85

Dunlap’s Sod; the Son of the Man 134

“ “ the Mysteries of Adoni 65

“ Spirit History of Man 77

Salverte’s Philosophy of Magic, English translation 68

337

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Des Mousseaux’s Magie au Dix-neuvieme Si&cle 63 passages
“ Hauts Ph6nomenes de la Magie 45

" Moeurs et Pratiques des Demons 16

Supernatural Religion 40

King’s Gnostics, 1st edition 42

Mackenzie’s Masonic Cyclopedia 36

Jacolliot’s Christna et le Christ 23

“ Bible in India, English translation IT

Le Spiritisme dans le Monde 19

Hone’s Apocryphal New Testament 27

Cory’s Ancient Fragments 20

Howitt’s History of the Supernatural 20

The Secret Doctrine , published in 1888, is of a piece with
Isis. It is permeated with plagiarisms, and is in all its parts a
rehash of other books. A specimen of the wholesale plagiarisms
. . . vol. 2, pp. 599-603. Nearly the whole of four pages was
copied from Oliver’s Pythagorean Triangle , while only a few
lines were credited to that work.

The Book of Dzyan was the work of Madame Blavatsky. . . .
I find in this “oldest book in the world” statements copied from
nineteenth-century books, and in the usual blundering manner
of Madame Blavatsky.

338

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MADAME BLAVATSKY’S WRITINGS
Isis Unveiled. 2 vols. New York, 1877.

Secret Doctrine. 2 vols. London, 1888. Volume III: London,
1897.

Key to Theosophy. London, 1889.

Voice of the Silence. London, 1889.

From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan. Translated from
the Russian. London, 1892.

Nightmare Tales. London, 1892.

Theosophical Glossary. London, 1892.

A Modem Panarion. London, 1895.

Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Edited by A. T. Barker. Lon-
don, 1924.

Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett . Edited by A. T.
Barker. London, 1925.

Complete Works. Articles in newspapers and periodicals.
Edited by A. T. Barker. London, 1933.

ABOUT MADAME BLAVATSKY AND HER
THEOSOPHY

Anonymous: Collapse of Koot Hoomi. Madras, India, 1904.
Anonymous: The Theosophical Movement. New York, 1925.
Anonymous, by Two Chelas: Man: Fragments of Forgotten
History. London, 1887.

Arundale, Francesca: My Guest. Adyar, India, 1932.

Besant, Annie: An Autobiography. London, 1893.

: The Theosophical Society and H. P. Blavatsky. London,

1891.

: The Case against William Q. Judge. No publisher

named. 1895.

: H. P. Blavatsku and the Masters of Wisdom. London,

1907.

Blavatsky Association: Transactions, 1924-7. London, 1927.

339

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Brooks, F. T.: The Theosophical Society and Its Esoteric
Bogeydom. Madras, 1913.

: Neo-Theosophy Exposed. Madras, 1914.

Brown, William T.: Some Experiences in India. Madras,
1884.

Butte, G. Baseden: Life of Madame Blavatsky. London, 1926.

Clark, Robert A.: “Theosophical Occultism and Mental Hy-
giene.” Psychiatry, Vol. VII, No. 3, August 1944.

Cleather, Alice L.: H. P. Blavatsky, A Great Betrayal. Cal-
cutta, 1922.

: H. P. Blavatsky, Her Life and Work for Humanity. Cal-
cutta, 1922.

: H. P. Blavatsky, As I Knew Her. Calcutta, 1923.

Coleman, William E.: Blavatsky Unveiled. London; n.d.
Compiled from articles in Religio-Philosophical Journal,
1889-93; Carrier Dove, 1891-2.

: “The Sources of Madame Blavatsky’s Writings.” Ap-
pendix C in SolovyofF s A Modern Priestess of Isis.

Conway, Moncure D.: My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the
East. London, 1906.

: “Madame Blavatsky at Adyar.” Arena. October 1891.

Corson, Eugene Rollin: Some Unpublished Letters of H. P.
Blavatsky. London, 1929.

Coulomb, Madame E.: Some Accounts of My Intercourse with
Madame Blavatsky from 1872 to 1884. London, 1885.

Crawford, F. Marion: Mr. Isaacs. London, 1882.

Damodar K. Mavalankar: Damodar. The Writings of a
Hindu Chela. California, 1940.

Dayan and Sarasvatt, Swami: “Autobiography,” in The The-
osophist. Bombay, 1879-80.

Doyle, Sir A. Conan: Wanderings of a Spiritualist. London,
1921.

Evans, Henry Ridgely: Hours with the Ghosts. Chicago, 1897.

Farquhar, John N.: Modem Religious Movements in India.
London, 1915.

Francis, T. M.: Blavatsky, Besant and Co. Story of a Great
Anti-Christian Fraud. St. Paul, 1939.

Fullerton, Alexander: Wilkes-Barre Letters. New York, n.d.

Garrett, F. Edmund: Isis Very Much Unveiled. The Story of
the Great Mahatma Hoax. London, 1894.

340

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gaskell, G. A.: Exeunt Mahatmas. London, 1907.

Guenon, Rene: Le Theosophisme. Histoire dune pseudo-
religion. Paris, 1921.

Hare, H. E. and W. L.: Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters?
London, 1936.

Hartmann, Franz: Report of Observations made during a
nine-months stay at the Headquarters of the Theosophical
Society at Adyar, India. Madras, 1884.

: Report of the Result of an Investigation into the Charges

against Madame Blavatsky Brought by Missionaries of the
Scottish Free Church at Madras and Examined by Com-
mittee Appointed for That Purpose by General Council of
the Theosophical Society. Madras, 1885.

: The Talking Image of Urur. New York, 1890.

Hastings, Beatrice: Defence of Madame Blavatsky. 2 vols.
Worthing, Sussex, England, 1937.

Home, D. D.: Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism. New York,
1877.

Houdini, Harry: A Magician among the Spirits. New York,
1924.

Howell, Basil P.: The Theosophical Society, the First Fifty
Years. London, 1926.

Hume, Allen Octavian: Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. Lon-
don, 1882.

Jelihovsky, Vera P.: Memoires dune petite fille russe. Paris,
n.d. (1896).

: “Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky,” in Russkoye Obozreniye,

1891; La Nouvelle Revue, 1892; Lucifer, 1894; Path, 1894-5.

Jinarajadasa, C.: Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma
Letters? Adyar.

(editor): Early Teachings of the Masters. Chicago, 1923.

(editor): Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. 2 vols.

Adyar, 1919, 1925.

(editor): The Golden Book of the T. S. Adyar, 1926.

(editor): The K. H. Letters to C. W. L. Adyar, 1941.

Judge, William Quan: The Esoteric She, the Late Madame
Blavatsky. London, 1893.

Keightley, Bertram: Reminiscences of H.P.B. Adyar, 1931.

Kingsford, Anna Bonus: Observations on Mr. Lillie’s Koot
Hoomie Unveiled. London, 1884.

34i

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Kingsland, William: The Real H. P. Blavatsky. London, 1928.

: Was She a Charlatan? London, n.d. (1927).

Kuhn, Alvin Boyd: Theosophy. New York, 1930.

Lillie, Abihub: Root Humi Unveiled. London, 1884.

: Madame Blavatsky and Her Theosophy. London, 1895.

Maeterlinck, Maubice: The Great Secret. New York, 1922.

Mann, Thomas: Three Essays. New York, 1929.

Maskelyne, J. N.: The Fraud of Modem Theosophy Exposed.
London, 1912.

Moobe, Geobge: Salve. New York, 1925.

Mulleb, Max: “Esoteric Buddhism,” in Nineteenth Century,
London, 1893.

Neff, Maby K.: Personal Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky. New
York, 1937.

Olcott, Henby Steel: People from the Other World. Hart-
ford, 1875.

: Old Diary Leaves. 6 vols. New York and Madras, 1895-

1910.

Praed, Mbs. Campbell: Affinities. London, 1886.

Racowitza, Princess Helene von: Autobiography. London,
1910.

Ramaswamier, S.: “How a Chela Found His Guru,” in The
Theosophist, Adyar, 1882.

Ransom, Josephine: Madame Blavatsky as an Occultist. Lon-
don, 1931.

Rawson, Albert Leighton: “Two Madame Blavatskys,” in
Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, New York; 1892.

Roberts, C. E. Bechofer: The Mysterious Madame. New
York, 1931.

Row, T. Subba: Esoteric Writings. Adyar, 1931.

Russell, Geobge W. (AE.): The Candle of Vision. London,
1920. And see A Memoir of AE, by John Eglinton ( London,
1937).

Ryan, Charles J.: H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Move-
ment. Point Loma, Cal., 1937.

Schary, Edwin G.: In Search of the Mahatmas of Tibet. Lon-
don, 1937.

Sinnett, A. P.: Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky;
based largely on a narrative in Russian by her sister, Mme.
Vera Jelihowsky. London, 1886.

342

BIBLIOGRAPHY

: The Occult World. London, 1881.

: Esoteric Buddhism. London, 1883.

: Early Days of Theosophy in Europe. London, 1922.

Society for Psychical Research: Report of Committee ap-
pointed to investigate Phenomena in connection with the
Theosophical Society. Proceedings , Vol. Ill, part 9; Also
Vol. IX, parts 24, 25; Vols. XI, XVII, XXIV.

: Journal, 1884-6. London.

Solovyoff, V. S.:A Modem Priestess of Isis. Abridged and
translated on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research
from the Russian; prefatory note by Henry Sidgwick. Lon-
don, 1895.

Tery, Simone: L’lle des Bardes. Paris, 1925.

Wachtmeister, Countess Constance: Reminscences of H. P.
Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine. London, 1893.

: H.P.B. and the Present Crisis in the T. S. London, 1895.

Whyte, Herbert: H. P. Blavatsky, an Outline of Her Life.
London, 1909.

Wilder, Alexander: “How Isis was Written,” in the Word,
New York, 1908.

: “Letters from H. P. Blavatsky to Alexander Wilder,” in

the Word, New York, 1908.

Witte, Count S. Y.: Memoirs. New York, 1921.

Wolff, Hannah Shepard: “Memoirs of H. P. Blavatsky” in
Two Worlds, London, 1881.

Wood, Ernest: Personal Psychology of H.P.B. London, 1924.

Yeats, W. B.: Autobiography. London, 1926. And see W. B.
Yeats, 1865-1939, by Joseph Hone (New York, 1943).

BY AND ABOUT H.P.B’S ASSOCIATES
AND INTERESTS

Britten, E. Hardinge: Art Magic. New York, 1875.
Caithness, Marie Countess of: Mystery of the Ages. London,
1887.

Clark University: Case for and against Psychical Belief.
Worcester, 1927.

Collins, Mabel: Light on the Path. London, 1885.

343

PRIESTESS OF THE OCCULT

Fortune, Dion: Psychic Self Defense. London, n.d.

: Sane Occultism. London, n.d.

Hue, Abbe: Recollections of Travel in Tartary, Tibet and
China. London, 1856.

James, William: Memories and Studies. New York, 1911.

: Varieties of Religious Experience. New York, 1902.

Jennings, Habgrave: The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mys-
teries. London, 1870.

Jung, Cakl Gustav: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology.
New York, 1928.

: Modem Man in Search of a Soul. New York, 1933.

Leuba, J. H.: Psychology of Religious Mysticism. London,
1925.

Levi, Eliphas (Baron Constant): The History of Magic. New
York, 1913.

Levy, Eugene: Mrs. Besant and the Present Crisis in the T. S.
London, 1913.

Lepfitt, General F. J.: Reminiscences. Providence, 1902.
Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edward: Zanoni. London, 1842.
MacDougall, Curtis D.: Hoaxes. New York, 1940.
Maitland, Edward: Life of Anna Kingsford. London, 1913.
McCabe, Joseph: Spiritualism. New York, 1920.

Mulholland, John: Quicker than the Eye. Indianapolis, 1927.

: Beware Familiar Spirits. New York, 1938.

Rhine, Joseph B.: New Frontiers of the Mind. New York, 1937.
Holland, Romain: Prophets of the New India. New York,
1930.

Shryock, John K.: Desire and the Universe. Philadelphia,
1935.

Sotheran, Charles: Alessandro di Cagliostro. New York, 1875.
Strachey, Ray: Religious Fanaticism. London, 1928.
Underhill, Evelyn: Practical Mysticism. New York, 1915.
Wallace, Alfred Russel: Miracles and Modem Spiritualism.
London, 1874.

Webster, Nesta H.: Secret Societies and Subversive Move-
ments. New York, n.d. (1924).

Wedderburn, Sir William: Life of Allen Octavian Hume.
London, 1913.

Westbrook, Richard B.: Eliminator or Skeleton Keys. Con-

344

BIBLIOGRAPHY

tains tribute to Dr. Alexander Wilder, who contributed
Chapter x. Philadelphia, 1894.

PERIODICALS

THEOSOPHICAL MAGAZINES ESTABLISHED DURING
H P.B’S LIFETIME

1879. The Theosophist. Bombay, Madras, India. Mme
Blavatsky, editor.

1881-3. Fragments of Occult Truth; Extracts from the The-
osophist. Bombay.

1887. Lucifer. London. Mme Blavatsky, editor.

1886. The Path. New York. William Q. Judge, editor.

1886. Die Sphinx, Monatschrift fur Seelen und Gelstesleben.
Leipzig. Dr. Hubbe-Schleiden, editor.

1887. Le Lotus, Revue des hautes etudes theosophiques.
Paris. Frederick. Gaboriau, editor.

1888. Theosophical Siftings. London.

CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALIST PERIODICALS THAT
PUBLISHED BITTER ATTACKS ON H.P.B.

Banner of Light. Boston.

Better Way. New York.

Carrier Dove. New York.

Light. London.

Mind and Matter. Philadelphia.

Occult Word. Rochester.

Religio-Philosophical Journal. Chicago.

Spiritual Scientist. Boston.

Spiritualist. London.

Two Worlds. London.

345

INDEX

Adhemar, Count and Countess d\
225, 265-6
African sorcerers, 118
Aksakov, Hon. A. N., 64-7, 70, 82-
3,91, 114, 116, 123,238, 278
Alice in Wonderland, 163
Allahabad Pioneer, 144, 192-3
American Bookseller, 116
Arabs, shipwrecked, 117-18
Archbishop of Canterbury, wife of,
11

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 156, 220
Arundale, Francesca, 220, 226-8,
260-1, 281

Arya Samaj, 125-6, 132, 134, 136,
140, 142, 145, 156, 255
Astor, John Jacob, 121
astral postoffice, 152-3, 162-3, 167
Atlantic Monthly, 75

Babaji D. Nath, also known as:
Bowaji, Gwala K. Deb, Dharbar-
giri Nath, M. Knshnamachari,
etc., 255-6, 258, 262-4, 267,
27i~3, 333

Babula, 137, 145, 149, 158, 162,
198, 202, 213, 215, 220, 230,
235, 246, 256
Baburao, 137

Back-to-Blavatsky campaign, 13-14
Bagration, Countess, 27, 30
Balfour, Arthur, 238
Ballard, Anna, 57-8
Banner of Light, 188-9
Bamum, P. T., 10
Bates, Rosa, 127, 129, 140, 148,
155 - 6 , 328

Beard, Dr. George M , 71-2
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 114
Belinsky, Russian critic, 18
Bell, Alexander Graham, 237
Benares, Maharajah of, 146, 159
Beresford, J. D., 12

Besant, Annie, 11-13, 27, 42, 131,
180, 264, 275, 284, 293, 303-10,
312, 315

Betanelly, Michael, 68-70, 76, 78,
80-2, 84, 90-3, 95, 96, 98, 99,

127

Bhagavad-Gita, 295
Bhavani Shankar, 255
Bhawani Row, 184
Billing, Mrs. Mary Hollis, 131-3,
139, 187-8
Bishen-lal, 191

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna* birth,
15; childhood, 16-24; marriage,
24-5; conflicting accounts, 26-
30; Rawson’s story, 34-6; Count
Witte's story, 37-40, 50-2; affair
with Metrovitch, 41-5; birth and
death of Youry, 45-8; death of
Metrovitch, 52; Cairo and Socidt6
Spirite, 52-5; struggles in New
York, 56-62; meets Olcott, 3-7,
62-4; Philadelphia, the Holmeses
and General Lippitt, 75-9; mar-
ries Betanelly, 80-2, 320; creates
Egyptian Brotherhood, 82-8;
leaves Betanelly, 93; Boston and
New York with Olcott, 94-9;
founds Theosophical Society,
100-3; visits Prof Corson, 104-5;
establishes Lamasery, 105-7;
meets Wilder, Baron de Palm,
and writes Isis Unveiled, 108-21;
becomes American citizen, 127;
moves to India, 124-33; stop-over
in London, 131-3; founds The
Theosophist, 141; Simla phenom-
ena, 149-53; Russian spy charges,
122, 126-7, 144, 148, 192, 247-
8, 259, 278, 301, 322; astral post-
office, 152-3, 162-3, 167, 210;
second summer in Simla, 167-73;
meets Subba Row and moves to

INDEX

Blavatsky ( Continued )

Adyar, 174-82; Eglinton and
K. H. letters, 183-5; Swami Day-
anand, pursuit of, and repudiation
by, 136-8, 145-6, 185-6; Massey-
Ski incident, 186-8; Kiddle
charges, 188-90; Phoenix venture,
192-7; Darjeeling, 198-200; sets
up Shrine, 201-3; Ooty and phe-
nomena for General Morgan,
203-5; social triumph in Europe,
213-21; Coulomb letters, 222-6,
230-3, 328-32; Laura Holloway
and alienation of Sinnett, 226-
30; SPR. report, 234-57;
leaves India, 256; Wurzburg with
Countess Wachtmeister, 264-82,
writing of Secret Doctrine , 267-9,
284-5, 287-96, Solovyoff and My
Confession, 278-9, 334-7, Ost-
end, 280-6, Keightleys take her
to England, 287; founds Blavatsky
Lodge, magazine Lucifer, Theo-
sophical Pubhshing Society, and
the E. S , 291-9; Dr. Coues and
New York Sun, 300-3, Annie
Besant takes charge, 303-10; rec-
onciled to Russian Church, 312-
13; death, 311-15; White Lotus
day, 6

appearance, 59, 72-3, 216,

263, 308, 310; achievements,

11-12, 114-15, 138-9, 210-11;
basic quest, 130, 137, 174-8, 211,
292-3; characteristics, 6-7, 11,
14, 23, 157, 197, 216, 288-9;
confederates, use of, 70, 79, 137,
155, 172-3, 174, 176, 185-8,
203, 246, 259, 269, 271; confes-
sions, series of, 65-7, 121-2,
209-13, 278-80, 322, 334-7;
drugs, use of, 36, 60; illnesses and
neurotic tendencies, 16, 18-19,
23-4, 45-6, 48, 59, 90-1, 126,
198, 251-2, 256, 311-12; Ma-
hatmas* comments on, 325-8;

Blavatsky (Continued)
source material and use of apocry-
phal documents, 14, 54, 57-8,
89, 275-6, 321; supernormal

powers, 239-41; three divisions of
life, 7

writings: Isis Unveiled, 28,
106-16, 117, 121, 124, 180, 186,
284, 291-2, 294-5, 313, 337-8,
Secret Doctrine, 267-8, 282,
284-5, 287-310, 338; Voice of
the Silence, 309; My Books, 313;
see also bibliography, 339
Blavatsky, General Nicephore, 7,
24-5, 27, 37, 40-1, 44, 81, 277,
334-5

Bohme, Jakob, 8
Boleyn, Anne, 218
Bombay Gazette , 151
Bouton, J W , 109-12
Bradlaugh, Charles, 305
Brahmanism, 115, 294
Britten, Emma H , 102-4, 106, 111
Brotherhood of Luxor, 84-7, 92-7,
104, 107, 126, 133, 163
Brothers N, 28-9, 33
Brothers, see Mahatmas
Brown, Gerry, 88, 91, 94-7, 103,
106, 128, 193

Brown, William T , 206-9, 22 6
Browning, Robert, 220
Bruzzesi, Signor, 100-1
Buddhism, 9, 115, 157-8, 185, 236,
263, 294, 299, 323
Buddhist monastery, 29-30
Bundy, Colonel John C., 238
Bun, William H., 121

C.I D , 143
Cabala, see Kabbahsts
Caithness, Countess Mane, Duch-
esse de Pomar, 214-17, 219, 223,
284

Candler, Mrs Ida, 307
Carmichael, Mr. and Mrs. David,
204-5

INDEX

Chevalier Louis, 103, 111
Childs, George W., 76
Chittenden, Vermont, 3, 62, 71, 82
Christian College Magazine, 242,
331-2

Christian Science, 8
Christianity, 9, 115, 142-3, 157,
219, 274, 294, 299, 313
Christophe, or Chnstofolo, 230-2
Clark, Dr. Robert A., 191
Cleather, Alice, 289
Coleman, William Emmette, 112,
294 - 5 , 337-8

Collins, Mabel, 288-90; Light on
the Path , 289, 300
Collins, Wilkie, 287
Constant, Abb£ (Eliphas L6vi),
229, 294, 314
Conway, Moncure, 211-12
Cook, Florence, 77
Cooper-Oakley, Mr. and Mrs.,
235-6, 249, 255

Corson, Eugene Rollin (son of Prof
Hiram), 105 •

Corson, Prof. Hiram and wife, Caro-
line, 104-6, 144

Coues, Dr. Elliott, 229, 299-303;
Key to North American Birds ,
299

Coulomb, M. and Mme, 52-3,
154-6, 159, 172, 198, 201-2,
205, 213-14, 222-5, 230-4, 238,
240-60, 264, 301, HPB’s letter
from Pans, 223, 328-30, instruc-
tions for phenomena, 232, 331-2
Crawford, F. Marion, 10
cremation, 119-20
Crookes, Sir William, 11, 77, 220,
238

Cruvelli, Sophie, 42
cults, 6, 8, 9, 10, 64, 82, 111, 179,
190, 248, 266, 305
Cutting, Emma, see Coulomb,
Mme

Damodar K. Mavalankar, 141, 143,
158-9, 162, 165, 185, 202,
206-9, 213-14, 223 - 5 , 230-1,
240, 242-3, 246, 251-2, 255,
273, 325, 329; K. H.’s letter to,
224, 330-1; disappearance, 253
Darwin, Charles, 237
Dashkov, Catherine Romanovna,
memoirs, 32

Davis, Andrew Jackson, 64-6
Dayanand, Swami Saraswati, 125,
130, 132, 134, 136-9, 142,

145-6, 176; repudiates H.P.B.,
185-6, 327

Dharbagiri Nath, see Babaji D. Nath
Ditson, Dr. G. L , 121
Djual Khul, 164, 189, 250
Dolgoruki, Princess Helene, see
Fadeev, Mme

Doubleday, General Abner W., 128,
299

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 131
Drexel, A J , 76

Duff, Sir Mountstuart Grant, 204
Dundukov-Korsakov, Prince, 41
Dweller, The , 86, 87, 92, 148
Dzyan, Book of, 291, 294, 309, 338

E. S. (Esoteric Section), 85, 297-8,
300, 310

Eddy, Mary Baker, 8, 98
Eddy brothers, 3, 5, 27, 48, 62-3,
65, 68, 71-2, 82, 301
Edison, Thomas A , 11, 237
Eghnton, Ernest and Joey, 183
Eglinton, William, 183-5, 190,

235, 240

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1 56
Eug&iie, Empress, 59

Fadeev, Andrez Mikhailovich
(H.P^'s grandfather), 15, 20,
23, 25, 37-40, 42, 50, 70

111

INDEX

Fadeev, Mme Helene (Princess
Dolgoruki, HP.B’s grandmother) ,
15, 21

Fadeev, Mme N. A. (H.P.B’s aunt),
14, 43, 47, 49-50, 127, 217, 235;
letter of 1870 from Masters, 275;
282, 311

Fawcett, E. D., 291
Felt, J. H., 101, 117
Fem, Edmund W., 172-3, 180,
226, 240, 327
Field, Cyrus, 237
Flynn, Mary, 256, 258, 262-4
Foulke, Henry B., 284
Freemasons, 86, 100, 124
Furness, Horace H , 295
Furness, Rev. William H., 80

Gaboriau, Frederick, 259, 281
Galitsin, Prince Alexander, 23-4
Garibaldi, 48

Gebhard, Franz, 228-9, 268, 271,
276, 282-3, 285, 300; Frau Geb-
hard, 229, 267, 285
Gladstone, William Ewart, 11, 235,
238

Gordon, Major General William
and Mrs., 183-4
Greeley, Horace, 114
Guinan, Texas, 213

Hadji Morya, 164

Hahn, Leonid (H.P.B's brother),
40, 54

Hahn, Nicholas (Hi\B*s cousin),
54

Hahn, Colonel Peter (H.PB’s fa-
ther), 5, 15, 17, 19-20, 25, 27,
31-3, 47, 60, 72, 275
Hahn, Mme (Zenaida R , H P.B's
mother), 15, 17-18, 19-20, 313
Hare, H. E. and W. L., 165
Harisinghi Rupsinghji, Prince, 141,
214, 272-3
Harte, Richard, 291
Hartmann, Dr. Franz, 213-14, 222,
225, 242-4, 251-2, 254-8, 282;

Hartmann, Dr. Franz (Continued)
sisters, Countess von Spreti and
Frau Max, 229
hashish, 36, 60
Hastings, Beatrice, 13, 14
Henderson, Major, 149-51, 323
Hindus and Hinduism, 9, 124-5,
136-8, 141-3, 156-7, 195, 200,
273

Hodgson, Richard, of the S.P.R.,
236-55, 278, 284, 305
Hoffman, Maude, 42
Holkar, Maharajah of, 332
Holloway, Laura, 226-9, 233, 235,
259, 261

Holmes, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson,
75-S), 321

Holt, Elizabeth G. J., 59-60
Home, D. D., 31, 38, 47, 72, 81,
114-15, 122-3, 130, 217, 279,
335-6; Julie (wife), 123
Home for Working Women, 58, 60
Hormuji Servai, 151
Houghton, Mrs. Charles, 98
Howard, General D. O., 229
Hubbe-Schleiden, Dr., 229-30, 238,
276, 282, 299
Hue, Abb6, 29

Hume, Allen O., 150, 152-3,

161-2, 164, 167-82, 192, 205,
241, 246, 253-5, 300, 327, Mrs.
Hume, 150-1

Hume, Joseph (father of Allen O ),
150

Hurrychund Chintamon, 132,
134-6, 139-40, 186-8

I. G., see E S

Ilanon, Mahatma, 43, 158, 164

Ilbert bill, 194

insanity, 191', 318

Isabella, Queen, 336

Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev, 33

James, William, 238-9
Janet, Pierce, The Mental State of
Hystencals , 104

INDEX

Jehhovsky, Mine Vera, 21, 31-3,
39, 45, 47, 126, 133, 217, 229,
235, 275, 278, 280, 282, 288,
296, 313; flirtation with Solovyoff,
277; repudiates memoirs of
H.P B., 14, 318-19
Jerebko, Clementine, 61-2, 94
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 89
Judge, William Quan, 100, 110,
217, 243-4, 254, 280-1, 284,
300-3

Jung, C. G., 191

K. , Mr., 27-9, 33, 43
K H , see Koot Hoomi
Kabbalists, 8, 86, 91, 100, 101, 123,

229, 292, 294
Kandalawala, Judge N., 332
Kant, Immanuel, 181
Karma, 9, 82, 197, 207
Keightley, Bertram and Dr. Archi-
bald, 217, 285-93, 296, 300, 308,
3i5

Keyserling, Count, 89
Kiddle, Henry, 188-90, 204, 247,
301

Kim, 145

King, John, 77-80, 84-5, 87-9,
91-2, 95-6, 163, 321
King* Katie, 77-8, 88, 321
Kmgsford, Rev Algernon, 218
Kmgsford, Anna, 218-19, 228, 238
Kipling, John L. (father of Rud-
yard), 148

Kishngbury, Miss, 282-3
Kissalev, Countess, 35-6
Koot Hoomi Lai Singh, Mahatma,
153, 163-72, 178-84, 187-99,
205, 207-8, 220, 224, 226-8,
231-2, 234, 241, 292, 298, 300,
311, 314, 324-8, 330-2, 336
Kropotkin, Prince, 17

L , Miss, 270, 276, 283, 332-3
Lamasery, 106-8, 119, 124, 127-9,

137, 300

Lane-Fox, Saint George, 214, 222,
225, 238, 251-2, 328, 330
Leadbeater, C W., 12, 235-6, 251
Lebendorf, Frau, 241
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 53
Light , 186, 188, 190
Lillie, Arthur, 241
Lippitt, General Francis J., 76,
78-81, 88-92, 95-7, 128
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 131, 238
London Times , 152-3, 196, 233,
336

Louise, the maid, 267-8, 282, 285
Lucifer , H.P B's London magazine,
290, 309-10
Luther, 125

Lytton, Bulwer, 86, 148, Zanoni,
86, 148

Lytton, Lord, 148
M., see Morya

Madras Missionary College, 248
Maeterlinck, Maunce, 88
magic, 7, 10, 16-17, 20, 22, 26,
29-30, 35, 40, 60, 67, 79, 92,
114, 116-17, 125, 129-30, 132,
137, 146, 149-51, 175 - 6 , 198,
202, 210, 269, 274, 329, Simla
phenomena, 149-51; universal be-
lief m, 176, rope trick, 57-8, 118,
176, duplicating rings, 183, 205,
232, 245; shrine, 202; vases, 203;
pm trays, 205, 232-3, 245, 331-2;
glamour, 212
Magnon, Mme, 61
Maha Chohan, 161, 164, 193, 197,

324

Mahatmas, also known as Masters
or Brothers: first encounter, 27;
H.P.B. their agent since girlhood,
26, 89, 275; advantages of, 85-6,
Swami Dayanand a Mahatma,
146; description of principals,
163-4; sponsor Phoenix venture,
192-7; meet H.P.B. in Darjee-
ling, 198-200; appear to Olcott

INDEX

Mahatmas ( Continued )
and party, 207-9; H 1 * 3 ' s control
of, threatened, 227; investigated
by S.P.R., 238-48; visit Adyar,
250; H.P.B. admits and denies in-
venting them, 279, 336, her final
effort to authenticate, 313-14;
and passim.

Mahatma letters: publication of,
42; alleged first letter, 49-50;
probable first, 84; red- and blue-
penciled postscripts and memos,
88, 91, 128, 234, 241, 269; de-
scription of, 162-3; authenticity,
138, 164-6, 174, 224, 240-1;
exposition of theosophical theory,
167; letters to Hume classics, 179,
high point of output, 183; en cas,
233; Coulombs demonstrate pre-
cipitation of, 245; quotations
from, 324-8; also , 140, 179, 197,
203-4, 230, 247, 295
Maitland, Edward, 218-19, 238
Marquette, Lydia, 54
Marvin, Dr. F. R , 72
Mary Magdalene, St., 218
Mary Queen of Scots, 214-15
Massey, C. C., 131-2, 134, 186-8,
190, 192, 217, 238, 246-7, 266,

324

Masters, see Mahatmas
Mazzini, 100
Mead, G. R. S , 309-10
Mentana, battle of, 48-9, 87
Messalina, 270, 332-3
Metamon, Paulos, 35
Metrovitch, Agardi, 37-8, 40-52,
101, 107, 223, 275-6, 301
Metrovitch, Teresina, 42
Meyendorf, Baron Nicholas, 44,
46-7, 72-3, 122, 217, 275, 279,
301-2, 335-6
Meyendorf, Baroness, 47
Michalko Guegidse, 5, 68-70, 82
Milan, King of Servia, 38
Miracle Club, 79, 83, 85, 87, 101-2

miracles, see magic
Mr. Isaacs, 10

Mitchell, Mrs. Isabella Olcott (Ol-
cott’s sister), 126

Mitford, see Mirza Murad Ali Beg
Mirza Murad Ali Beg, 191; Elixir
of Life, 191

Mohini Chatterji, 213, 215, 217,
220, 227, 235, 246, 270-3, 281,
332 - 3 , 337

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 98
Montaigne, 314

Moolji Thackersey, 124-5, 130, 134,
137

Morgan, Major General H. R and
Mrs., 189-90, 204-5, 232-3,
242, 245, 249, 255
Morgan, Sir Henry, 77
Morsier, Mme Emilie de, 262-3, 281
Morya, Mahatma, 90, 138, 140, 142,
163-4, 167, 170-2, 178-81, 199,
234, 250-2, 275, 314, 321, 324-8
Moses, Stainton, 131
Muller, Max, 295-6
Myers, F. W. H., 220, 229
mysticism, 7, 8, 10, 113, 177, 195,
215, 218, 229, 264, 274, 310

Netherclift, handwriting expert, 241
New York Evening Post, 109
New York Graphic, 4, 63, 65, 67-8,
71-3, 82, 160, 301
New York Herald , 116, 129
New York Star, 60
New York Sun, 57, 67-8, 83, 96,
116, 164, 301-3
New York Times, 116, 129
New York Tribune, 6 3, 116
New York World, 119
Nineteenth Century, 11

occultism, 7, 8, 10, 23, 26, 36, 41,
43, 58, 102-3, 112-14, 118,
123-5, 130, 132, 135, MO, 145,
148, 150, 156, 170, 174-9, 180,
185-6, 191, 193-4, 198, 210-12,
218, 225, 229, 261, 271-2, 287,

INDEX

occultism ( Continued )

291-2, 305, 312, 321, 326, 335
O'Connor, J. E., 184-5
Olcott, Colonel Henry Steel* meets
H.P.B., 3-5, 62-3; background
and personality, 63-4; receives
Betanelly letters, 67-70; investi-
gates the Holmeses in Philadel-
phia, 76; becomes Neophyte in
Egyptian Brotherhood, 84-7; Bos-
ton and Gerry Brown, 96-9, helps
found Theosophical Society in
New York, 101; shares apartment
with H P B. and assists with Isis,
106-8, 111-12; organizes de Palm
cremation, 119-20; begins cor-
respondence with India, 124-5;
receives message from Master M.,
138; disillusionment, 139, 141,
156, 159; business manager of
The Theosophist, 141-2, assists
H.P.B. with Russian spy charges,
148-9; organizes Ceylon tours,
157-8, introduced to Shrine,
202-3; healing activities pro-
hibited, 206; sees and speaks to
Master on tour, 206-9, Hodgson's
estimate of, 248, talks to Master,
250; contemplates suicide, 256;
helps H P B. escape from India,
249-57, ignored by H P B ,
260-1, 296-7; tries to prevent
organization of E S., 298-9
Olcott, Mrs Mary Morgan (wife of
Col. Henry Steel), 63, 93, 99,
106, 128, 131

Olcott, Morgan (son of Col Henry
Steel), 78

Oppenheimer, Dr Leon, 276
Orlov-Davidov, the Counts, 40
O'Sullivan, Hon. John L, 114
Owen, Robert Dale, 75-7

Palladino, Eusapia, 77
Palm, Baron de, 119-21, 127-8,
301, 314

Pancoast, Dr. Seth, 91, 101, 112
Paracelsus, 8, 170, 294
paranoia, 8, 191, 200
Parker, Miss, 59
Patterson, Rev. George, 242
Peebles, James M., 124-5
Philadelphia Inquirer, 77-8
Philadelphia Ledger, 76
Philalethes, Eugemus, 294
Phoenix, The, 192-7, 202, 204,
220, 228

Podmore, Frank, 220

Presbyterian Marathi Mission, 143

Prince, Morton, 45

Pnnce, Walter Franklin, 239

Pryse, James M , 310

Pusey, Joshua, 81

Ragoonath Rao, 331
Ramalinga Deb, 332
Ramaswamier, S , 199, How a Chela
Found his Guru, 199
Randolph, Pascal Beverly, 114
Rasputin, 17

Rawson, Albert Leighton, 34-7,
107, 110

reincarnation, 9, 186, 210, 218-19
Religio-Philosophical Journal, 78,
238

Rmaldo, Mr., 58
Rockhill, William W., 30
Rolland, Romam, 88
Roosevelt, President Theodore, 37,
5i

Root, Elihu, 302

Rosicrucians, 86, 100, 114, 124,
190, 209, 213, 292, 321
Ruskm, John, 238
Russell, George (A. E.), 293

Sargent, Epes, 97-8, 295
Sassoon, Jacob, 332
Savonarola, 185

Schleiden, Dr. Hiibbe-, see Hiibbe-
Schleiden

Schmiechen, Hermann, 226

INDEX

Science and Health, 8
Sebire, Mme, 53-4
Senkovsky (Baron Brambens), 18
Serapis Bey, 85-7, 92-3, 96-9,
106-7, 109, 128, 140, 160
Shankaracharya, 175
Shaw, Bernard, 303
Shrine, 203, 205, 210, 213, 217,
223, 232, 242-4, 249, 254, de-
scription, 202

Sidgwick, Prof. Henry, President
S PR, 278

Sims, Mr., of British Museum, 241
Smnett, A. P entertains H.P.B.,
Allahabad and Simla, 144-53;
intercedes with F O on Russian
spy charges, 148-9, Simla picnic,

149- 50; Mrs. Hume’s brooch,

150- 1; proposes London Times

test, 152-3; astral postoffice and
Mahatma letters, 41, 152-3,

161-2, 164-7, 179, 183, 324-8;
with H P B. to Hume’s Simla
castle, 167-73; tested by H P B.
for blmd obedience, 174-82, 246;
Eglinton fiasco, 184-5; letter from
Kiddle, 188-9; Phoenix venture,
192-7, 204; aspires to presidency
of London Lodge, 219-20; Laura
Holloway brings disillusionment,
226-8, H P B. continues to de-
pend on his help, 233, 280-1,
332-3; Gabonau incident, 259-
60; discarded by H P B , 296-7;
opposes E S , 298; estranged at
H P B’s death, 315

writings* Occult World, 165-6,
188-90, 213, 217, 226, 304; Eso-
teric Buddhism, 217; Incidents in
the Life of Mme Blavatsky,
274-8; H P.B's letters about Met-
rovitch, 41-5, 47-9, 55, 319-20;
repudiated by Vera, 14
Sinnett, Mrs. Patience, 67, 281,
332-3

Ski, 131, 133, 187-8, 217, 247, 266

Smirnov, Rev. E., 313
Smith, Miss Sue, 58-9
Soci6t£ Spinte, 52-4, 202
Society for Psychical Research, 217,
234, 236, 274, 278, 284, 287,
298, 305-6, 323, 330-1; verdict
on H P.B , 10, 248; Report,
237-57; types of witnesses, 246;
conclusions, 247

Society of Friends of Mme Blavat-
sky, 13-14

Solovyov, V. S , 217, 229, 234, 259,
281, entertains H P B. at Samt-
Cergues, 262-4; refuses to col-
laborate with H.P B., 276-7;
H P B’s confession, 278-80,
334-7, Modem Priestess of Isis ,
278

Sotheran, Charles, 100-2, 107-8,
112, 128

Spaulding, E S,n8
Spedalien, Baron, 229
Spencer, Herbert, 237
Spiritual Scientist, 86, 91, 94, 123
spiritualism, 4, 5, 7, 9, 31-3, 39-40,
52-5, 62-106 passim, 115, 117,
119, 124, 131, 190, 204, 224,
226, 237, 303, 321, 336
Spreti, Countess von, 229
Springfield Republican, 116
Stead, William T., 304
Sterne, Laurence, 78
Stewart, A T, 121
Subba Row, T H P B. consults on
secrets of occultism, 174-9, 261,
buys Adyar estate for H P B , 176,
198, 201; advises H P B. to buy
Coulomb letters, 225, 230, re-
action to H P B , 246, name on
first title page of Secret Doctrine,
284, refuses to edit, 285
Subramama Iyer, Sir S , 249
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 8-9

telepathy, 9, 1 1 5

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 11, 238

viii

INDEX

Thayer, Mary Baker, 96, 98-9
Theosophical Society: statistics of
growth, 12; conflicting policies,
12-14; founding of, 8, 27, 101-4,
275, 318-19; probable origin,
83-6; selection of name, 101-2;
amalgamation with Arya Samaj,
126, struggles and demise of origi-
nal American Society, 106, 117-
19, 124, 128; London T.S.,

131-2, 218; T.S. in India, 136,
138, 140, 143, 148, 155, 168,
206; adoption of Universal Broth-
erhood plank endorsed by Maha
Chohan, 159-61; scanty member-
ship, 194, 209; investigation by
S P.R , 239-40, 328, ninth con-
vention, 249-50; proposed re-
organization, 251-2; actual re-
organization, 255; resignations
after S P R. Report, 281, 284;
H P.B. organizes Blavatsky Lodge
and E. S. independent of Adyar,
296-7, 309; Olcott compromises,
299, revival of American society,
299-303; H P.B’s concern, 288,

303, London headquarters, 308
Theosophist , 141-2, 155-6, 158,

164, 168, 175, 191, 207-^, 213,
259, 262, 285, 290, 298
Theosophy, 23, 26, 30, 41, 57, 64,
89, 123, 131, 141, 148, 151-4,
158, 161, 166-70, 209, 215-16,
219-20, 223, 262, 282, 295-6,

304, 308, 323; past history of, 8;
HPB’s adaptation, 9-12; Lost
Formula, 175; warning by psy-
chiatrists, 191; S.P R. statement
of H P.B's claims, 239

Theresa, St., 247
Thomas, St , 244

Tibet, 9, 48-9, 57-8, 130, 142,
156-8, 162-3, 170, 177, 181,
199-200, 207-8, 234, 239, 247,
253, 269, 275, 285, 324, 326;

Tibet ( Continued )

H P.B's efforts to establish resi-
dence, 26, 28-30
Times of India, 323
Tuitit Bey, 84, 86, 97, 160, 163
Tussaud, Mme, Wax Works, 133

Vanderbilt, Commodore, 121
Vega, 184, 235
Voltaire, 241

Vorontzov-Dashkov, Count, 40

Wachtmeister, Countess Constance,
27, 229, 264-76, 280-8, 315;
Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky,
266

Wadhwan, Thakur Sahib of, 214
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 11, 77, 238
Webster, F. E , 204, 241
Westbrook, Richard B., 78
Weygandt, 191
Wiggin, Rev. J. H , 98, 101
Wilder, Dr. Alexander, 108-12,
121, 128, 284, 314, 318
Wilkes-Barre Times, 284
Wilson, Henry, 76
Wimbndge, E., 127, 133, 135, 140,
148, 155, 328

Witte, Count S. Y. (H P B’s
cousin), 21, 23, 36-43, 46, 50-2
Witte, Mme (H P.B's aunt), 37,

50, 68

Wittgenstein, Prince fimile de, 73,
114, 301-2

Wolff, Mrs. Hannah Shepard, 60
women, comments on by Mahatmas,
325

Wong Chin Foo, 121, 322
Wyoming rabbits, 114

Yeats, William Butler, 89
Yoga and yogis, 7, 9, 130, 137-8,
145, 176-7, 185, 198-9, 271,
327; Subba Row on yogis, 177-8
Youry (illegitimate child), 41, 44-8,

51, 66, 275, 279, 334
Yusuf ben Makerzi, Shaik, 35

A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH
THIS BOOK IS SET

This book is set in Electra, a Linotype face designed by W. A.
Dwiggins. This face cannot be classified readily as either “mod-
em” or “old-style.” It is not based on any historical model, nor
does it echo any particular period or style. It avoids the extreme
contrast between “thick” and “thin” elements that mark most
“modern” faces, and attempts to give a feeling of fluidity, power,
and speed.

The book was composed, printed, and bound by the Kings-
port Press, Kingsport, Tennessee. The typography is by James
Hendnckson.

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